"Well—foive hundred, thin. An' how long has ut be'n ago?"
"Nine years."
Kelliher laughed: "Who was roight—me or the damn doctors? Ye've lived eighteen toimes as long as they was going to let ye live a'ready—an' av me eyes deceive me roight, ye ain't ordered no coffin yet."
"No—I ain't ordered no coffin. I come here to hunt you up an' pay you back."
Kelliher laughed: "There ain't nothin' to pay son. You don't owe me a cent. A grub-stake's a grub-stake, an' no one iver yit said Patsy Kelliher welched on a bargain. Besoides, Oi guess ye got all Oi sint ye afther. I know'd damn well they wasn't no gold in the Kootenay—none that a tenderfoot lunger cud foind."
McBride laughed: "Sure—I knew after I'd been there six months what you done it for. I doped it all out. But, as you say, a grub-stake's a grub-stake, an' no time limit on it, an' no one ever said Jim McBride ever welched on a bargain, neither. I ain't never be'n just ready to come back an' settle with you, till now. I drifted north, and farther north, till I wound up in the Yukon country. I prospected around there an' had pretty good luck. I'd got back my strength an' my health till right now there ain't but damn few men in the big country that can hit the trail with Jim McBride. But I wasn't never satisfied with what I was takin' out. I know'd there was somethin' big somewheres up there. I could feel it, an' I played for the big stake. Others stuck by stuff that was pannin' 'em out wages. I didn't. They called me a fool—an' I let 'em. I struck up river at last an' they laughed—but they ain't laughin' now. Me an' a squaw-man named Carmack hunted moose together over on Bonanza. One day Carmack was scratchin' around
the roots of a big birch tree an' just fer fun he gets to monkeyin' with my pan." The man paused and Brent could hear the suppressed breathing of the miners who had crowded close. His eyes swept their faces and he saw that every eye in the house was staring into the face of McBride as they hung upon his every word. He realized suddenly that he himself was waiting in a fever of impatience for the man to go on. "Then I come into camp, an' we both fooled with the pan—but we didn't fool long. God, man! We was shakin' it out of the grass roots! Coarse gold! I stayed at it a month—an' I've filed on every creek within ten miles of that lone birch tree. Then I come outside to find you an' settle." He paused and his eyes swept the room: "These men friends of yourn?" he asked. Kelliher nodded. "Well then I'm lettin' 'em in. Right here starts the biggest stampede the world ever seen. Some of the old timers that was already up there are into the stuff now—but in the spring the whole world will be gettin' in on it!"
Kelliher was the only self-possessed man in the room: "What'll she run to the pan?" he asked.
"Run to the pan! God knows! We thought she was big when she hit an ounce——"
"An ounce to the pan!" cried Kelliher, "Man ye're crazy!"