"Did Dutch Henry an' Black Jack Demeree tell yo' that, too?"
Connie laughed: "No, I read about it in a book."
Waseche snorted contemptuously, "Read it in a book! Look a heah, son, it don't stand to reason that if anyone know'd they was gold an' coppeh up theah they'd be foolin' away theah time writin' books about it, does it? No suh, they'd be be right up amongst it scoopin' it out of the gravel, that's wheah they'd be! Books is redic'lus."
"But the man that wrote the book didn't know where the gold is——"
"You bet he didn't! That's the way with these heah fellows that writes books. They don't know enough about gold to make 'em a livin' diggin' it—so they write a book about it. They's mo' ways than one to make a livin' out of gold—like sellin' fake claims, an' writin' books."
"I'm going to roll in, now, because I want to get an early start. It's that book up there on the shelf with the green cover. You read it, and when I come back with Big Ruff, we'll talk it over."
Again Waseche snorted contemptuously, but a few minutes later as he lay snuggled between his blankets, Connie smiled to himself to see his big partner take the book from the shelf, light his pipe, and after settling himself comfortably in his chair, gingerly turn its pages.
Spur Mountain is not really a mountain at all. It is a long sparsely timbered ridge only about seven hundred feet in height that protrudes into the valley of the Ten Bow, for all the world like a giant spur. The creek doubles sharply around the point of the spur which slants upward to a deep notch or pass in the range that separates the Ten Bow from the valley of the Tanana.
It was past noon when Connie Morgan swung his dogs from the creek-bed and headed back along the base of the spur toward the main range. He had covered the fifteen miles slowly, being forced almost constantly to break trail ahead of the dogs through the new-fallen snow.
He turned into a patch of timber that slanted obliquely upward to the crest of the ridge, and working his outfit halfway to the top, pitched his tent on a narrow ledge or shoulder, protected from every direction by the ridge itself, and by the thick spruce timber. The early darkness had settled when he finished making camp and as he ate his supper he watched the stars appear one by one in the heavens. After replenishing his fire, he removed his mukluks and mackinaw, and slipped into his sleeping bag.