“An’ you reckon to stake a haf million on your notion?” Chilcoot cried uneasily.
“I’ll play my luck.” Wilder nodded. “I’ll go further. I know the stuff is here.”
“You know that?” Mike broke in.
“I surely do.”
“You reckon you ken set your finger on it?”
“More or less.”
The man with the flaming head suddenly sprang to his feet.
“More or—less!” he cried almost contemptuously in his headlong way.
Wilder remained unmoved.
“Here,” he said quietly spreading out his hand in an expressive gesture, “we only got a matter of weeks to the freeze-up. We’re liable to snow any day now, and every night ther’s frost. In awhile the ground’ll be solid so we can’t break into it without more dynamite than we got stowed. That being so, here’s the schedule. You, Mike, now you feel good about it, ’ll need to beat up stream and locate prospect ground for next spring. You’ll use the whole outfit and you’ll locate camp ground. That’s your billet till the freeze-up, and you’ll need to make right up to the head waters. Chilcoot and I’ll beat our own trail. An’ don’t forget it, boy, Chilcoot’s witness ther’s haf a million for you if we don’t make that ‘strike.’ Does it tickle you any?”