As he talked, he poured the dust into one of our half-filled buckskin sacks, and dropped it into our safe deposit—an empty oil can. Then, heaving a tired sigh, he slid the can under the bunk. On the morrow we would pick up the last scant remnants, pull the sluices, and divide this mass of gold into packs for the next day’s journey to the post trader at the camp. Our season’s work was done. As claims went in that country, and in proportion to the cost of living, we had not prospered; but we had more than paid our way and were glad; for, long before, we had decided to sell the claim and go “outside”—to the real United States—for the summer season. We went to sleep with the cabin door open, now that spring had come, and I remember that the last feature I observed was the lengthening of the daylight.
Full of the desire of youth for rest, I awoke only when Tim shouted his call for breakfast, and tumbled sleepily to my clothing, to the washbasin outside the door, and my seat at the table. Then, a gallant company, we sallied down for our last day’s work on the claim. And we made merry over it, this last day, and played pranks, and loitered, and threw the last shovelfuls with something of regret, for we were leaving the ground that had promised much, paid something, and was to be bartered. It was like bidding good-by to a friend, when we took the last pan of dust we would ever “clean up” from it, and filed toward the homely cabin on the mountainside. George put the pan on top of the stove to dry, for we used no amalgam; and Tim, whose week it was to cook, put the supper before us. We ate with something of melancholy, some queer mingling of good-by regret and satisfaction that at least we had worked as men. Tim got up at last and caught the pan in his hands with a strip of cloth, and reached under the bunk for the can. We heard an exclamation, first of surprise, and then alarm, as he pulled it out from beneath the bunk, clattering hollowly.
“Robbed! By heavens! Some one’s looted us!”
His voice arose in a queer crescendo of astonishment and indignation. Stools were thrust back and our feet trampled heavily over the floor as we bent above him and stared down at the empty can, disbelieving him and our senses. It was true. The can was empty, and the profits of our year’s toil had vanished as if by malignant magic. We started toward the door foolishly intent on plunging out into the night, but Bill Davis, veteran of the trails, leaped in front of us and threw up a restraining hand.
“Easy, boys! Easy does it,” he said quietly, and we paused, looking at him expectantly, and wondering what he had in mind.
“Our only chance,” he said, “of learning how, or by whom it was taken, is the sign out here in the mud. Whoever got it left a track. If we run over it in the night, it will be wiped out. If we wait until morning the sign will be there, some place; unless the man that robbed us had wings.”
“Right for you!” was a chorus, growled in unison.
And so we all remained in the cabin, and sat and talked, and waited for daybreak, and indulged in idle speculation, but there was no lamentation.
It was George’s wholesome, kindly hand that crept over on mine, as we sat there in the gloom, and it was his kindly voice that said: “Don’t worry, boy! It hits you harder than us, because we’ve money outside. Alaska to us was an adventure. To you it was the first step on the big stairs of life, for you are young, but we’ll get him yet. It’s part of the game that we should.”
And I was comforted thereby, and asleep when some one aroused us in the morning. I tumbled from my bunk, astonished by the sudden knowledge that I had slept in all my clothing, and that I had not suffered a wickedly troublesome dream. Tim was up and pouring coffee, hot and steaming, into the tin cups, and the day was breaking over the eastern hills in the early hour of the morning, so swift is the sun’s reappearance in that high clime. We ate and drank sparsely, quietly, each intent on what the signs might show, and deliberately, nay, almost leisurely, tightened our belts and went out of the door, George in the lead, Tim, short and stocky, bending behind him like an unleashed hound, and Bill, huge and grim, following.