“Hear that Jim, no one doubts the old man’s word. That’s better than gold. I would have been back in a month, but we got word from a party who came down from this section that you had left and that the cache had been robbed. It must have been another camp. Had many visitors looking for food and stealing what you did not give?”
“I have not seen a man since we parted in the woods.”
“Good heavens! why hundreds and hundreds have gone down the river and you did not know enough to make for the big stream, get taken on board and find yourself in Dawson City in two days.”
“No.”
“I told you Jim, that being a new chum he’d sit down as long as the grub held out.”
“Did you mine any gold?”
“A little.”
“Show it?”
I handed him the buckskin bag which held the gold I had mined.
“Twenty ounces, enough to take you home.”