he got strong enough to hit the trail. Houses were going up everywhere, houses of boards that were taking the place of the tents and the cabins of the previous year. Work there was a plenty, and the laborers were few. Chechakos were pouring in by the thousands and staking clear to the mountain tops. But, none of them would work. Crazed by the lure of gold they pitted the hillsides and valleys and mucked like gnomes in their wild scramble for riches. Brent worked for a week in a sawmill, and then quit, bought some hooch and some necessary food, and retired to his cabin to reread his reports and laugh at the efforts of the hillside miners.
The old timers were scattered out in the hills, and the tin-horns and chechakos who had worshiped at his shrine were dispersed, or had forgotten him. Life moved swiftly in the big camp. Yesterday's hero would be forgotten tomorrow. And the name of Ace-In-The-Hole meant nothing to the newcomers. Occasionally he met one of the old timers, who would buy him a drink, and hurry on about his business.
Spasmodically Brent worked at odd jobs. He fired a river steamboat on a round trip to Fort Gibbon. Always he promised himself pretty soon, now, he would be ready to hit the trail. Stampedes were of almost daily occurrence, but Brent was never in on them and so the summer wore on and still he had not hit the trail. "I'll just wait now, for snow," he decided late in August. "Then I'll get
a good dog team together, and make a real rush. There's no use hitting out with a poling boat, the creeks are all staked, and back-packing is too hard work for a white man. I'm as good a man as I ever was, and when the snow comes I'll show them."
Brent's wardrobe was depleted until it consisted of a coarse blue jumper and ragged overalls drawn over underclothing, laced and tied together in a dozen places. He had not shaved for a month.
Later in October Camillo Bill came to his cabin. He stood in the doorway and stared into the dirty interior where Brent, with the unwashed dishes of his last meal shoved back, sat reading.
"Hello, Camillo," greeted the owner of the cabin as he rose to his feet and extended his hand, "Come in and sit down."
Camillo Bill settled himself into a chair: "Well I'll be damned!" he exclaimed under his breath.
Brent rinsed a couple of murky glasses in the water pail, and reached for a bottle that sat among the dirty dishes: "Have a drink," he invited, extending a glass to his visitor.
Camillo Bill poured a taste of liquor into the glass and watched Brent, with shaking hand, slop out a half a tumblerful, and drink it down as one would drink water. He swallowed the liquor and returned the glass to the table.