Down on the Gravel River, with the Mackenzie only three or four days away, the outfit rounded a bend one evening and came suddenly upon a camp. Brent, who was in the lead, paused abruptly and stared at the fire that flickered cheerfully among the tree trunks a short distance back from the river. "We'll swing in just below them," he called back to Joe Pete, "It's time to camp anyway."
As they headed in toward the bank they were greeted by a rabble of barking, snarling dogs, which dispersed howling and yelping as a man stepped into their midst laying right and left about him with a long-lashed whip. The man was Johnnie Claw, and Brent noted that in the gathering darkness he had not recognized him.
"Goin' to camp?" asked Claw.
Brent answered in the affirmative, and headed his dogs up the bank toward a level spot some twenty or thirty yards below the fire.
Claw followed and stood beside the sled as they
unharnessed the dogs: "Where you headin'?" he asked.
"Mackenzie River."
"Well, you ain't got fer to go. Trappin'?"
Brent shook his head: "No. Prospecting."
"Where'd you come from?"