As became a high-salaried expert and the representative of the great house of Guggenheim, Colonel Bowie lived in one of the most magnificent cabins in Dawson. Of squared logs, hand-hewn, it was two stories high, and of such extravagant proportions that it boasted a big living room that was used for a living room and for nothing else.
Here were big bear-skins on the rough board floor, and on the walls horns of moose and caribou. Here roared an open fireplace and a big wood-burning stove. And here Smoke met the social elect of Dawson-- not the mere pick-handle millionaires, but the ultra-cream of a mining city whose population had been recruited from all the world-- men like Warburton Jones, the explorer and writer, Captain Consadine of the Mounted Police, Haskell, Gold Commissioner of the North-West Territory, and Baron Von Schroeder, an emperor's favourite with an international duelling reputation.
And here, dazzling in evening gown, he met Joy Gastell, whom hitherto he had encountered only on trail, befurred and moccasined. At dinner he found himself beside her.
"I feel like a fish out of water," he confessed. "All you folks are so real grand you know. Besides I never dreamed such oriental luxury existed in the Klondike. Look at Von Schroeder there. He's actually got a dinner jacket, and Consadine's got a starched shirt. I noticed he wore moccasins just the same. How do you like MY outfit?"
He moved his shoulders about as if preening himself for Joy's approval.
"It looks as if you'd grown stout since you came over the Pass," she laughed.
"Wrong. Guess again."
"It's somebody else's."
"You win. I bought it for a price from one of the clerks at the A. C. Company."
"It's a shame clerks are so narrow-shouldered," she sympathized. "And you haven't told me what you think of MY outfit."
"I can't," he said. "I'm out of breath. I've been living on trail too long. This sort of thing comes to me with a shock, you know. I'd quite forgotten that women have arms and shoulders. To-morrow morning, like my friend Shorty, I'll wake up and know it's all a dream. Now, the last time I saw you on Squaw Creek--"
"I was just a squaw," she broke in.
"I hadn't intended to say that. I was remembering that it was on Squaw Creek that I discovered you had feet."
"And I can never forget that you saved them for me," she said. "I've been wanting to see you ever since to thank you--" (He shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly). "And that's why you are here to-night--"
"You asked the Colonel to invite me?"
"No! Mrs Bowie. And I asked her to let me have you at table. And here's my chance. Everybody's talking. Listen, and don't interrupt. You know Mono Creek?"
"Yes."
"It has turned out rich--dreadfully rich. They estimate the claims as worth a million and more apiece. It was only located the other day."
"I remember the stampede."
"Well, the whole creek was staked to the sky-line, and all the feeders, too. And yet, right now, on the main creek, Number Three below Discovery is unrecorded. The creek was so far away from Dawson that the Commissioner allowed sixty days for recording after location. Every claim was recorded except Number Three Below. It was staked by Cyrus Johnson. And that was all. Cyrus Johnson has disappeared. Whether he died, whether he went down river or up, nobody knows. Anyway, in six days, the time for recording will be up. Then the man who stakes it, and reaches Dawson first and records it, gets it."
"A million dollars," Smoke murmured.
"Gilchrist, who has the next claim below, has got six hundred dollars in a single pan off bedrock. He's burned one hole down. And the claim on the other side is even richer. I know."
"But why doesn't everybody know?" Smoke queried skeptically.
"They're beginning to know. They kept it secret for a long time, and it is only now that it's coming out. Good dog-teams will be at a premium in another twenty-four hours. Now, you've got to get away as decently as you can as soon as dinner is over. I've arranged it. An Indian will come with a message for you. You read it, let on that you're very much put out, make your excuses, and get away."
"I--er--I fail to follow."
"Ninny!" she exclaimed in a half-whisper. "What you must do is to get out to-night and hustle dog-teams. I know of two. There's Hanson's team, seven big Hudson Bay dogs--he's holding them at four hundred each. That's top price to-night, but it won't be to-morrow. And Sitka Charley has eight Malemutes he's asking thirty-five hundred for. To-morrow he'll laugh at an offer of five thousand. Then you've got your own team of dogs. And you'll have to buy several more teams. That's your work to-night. Get the best. It's dogs as well as men that will win this race. It's a hundred and ten miles, and you'll have to relay as frequently as you can."
"Oh, I see, you want me to go in for it," Smoke drawled.
"If you haven't the money for the dogs, I'll--"
She faltered, but before she could continue, Smoke was speaking.
"I can buy the dogs. But--er--aren't you afraid this is gambling?"
"After your exploits at roulette in the Elkhorn," she retorted, "I'm not afraid that you're afraid. It's a sporting proposition, if that's what you mean. A race for a million, and with some of the stiffest dog-mushers and travellers in the country entered against you. They haven't entered yet, but by this time to-morrow they will, and dogs will be worth what the richest man can afford to pay. Big Olaf is in town. He came up from Circle City last month. He is one of the most terrible dog-mushers in the country, and if he enters he will be your most dangerous man. Arizona Bill is another. He's been a professional freighter and mail-carrier for years. It he goes in, interest will be centred on him and Big Olaf."
"And you intend me to come along as a sort of dark horse."
"Exactly. And it will have its advantages. You will not be supposed to stand a show. After all, you know, you are still classed as a chechaquo. You haven't seen the four seasons go around. Nobody will take notice of you until you come into the home stretch in the lead."
"It's on the home stretch the dark horse is to show up its classy form, eh?"
She nodded, and continued earnestly. "Remember, I shall never forgive myself for the trick I played on the Squaw Creek Stampede until you win this Mono claim. And if any man can win this race against the old-timers, it's you."
It was the way she said it. He felt warm all over, and in his heart and head. He gave her a quick, searching look, involuntary and serious, and for the moment that her eyes met his steadily, ere they fell, it seemed to him that he read something of vaster import than the claim Cyrus Johnson had failed to record.
"I'll do it," he said. "I'll win it."
The glad light in her eyes seemed to promise a greater need than all the gold in the Mono claim. He was aware of a movement of her hand in her lap next to his. Under the screen of the tablecloth he thrust his own hand across and met a firm grip of woman's fingers that sent another wave of warmth through him.
"What will Shorty say?" was the thought that flashed whimsically through his mind as he withdrew his hand. He glanced almost jealously at the faces of Von Schroeder and Jones, and wondered if they had not divined the remarkableness and deliciousness of this woman who sat beside him.
He was aroused by her voice, and realized that she had been speaking some moments.
"So you see, Arizona Bill is a white Indian," she was saying. "And Big Olaf is--a bear wrestler, a king of the snows, a mighty savage. He can out-travel and out-endure an Indian, and he's never known any other life but that of the wild and the frost."
"Who's that?" Captain Consadine broke in from across the table.
"Big Olaf," she answered. "I was just telling Mr Bellew what a traveller he is."
"You're right," the Captain's voice boomed. "Big Olaf is the greatest traveller in the Yukon. I'd back him against Old Nick himself for snow-bucking and ice-travel. He brought in the government dispatches in 1895, and he did it after two couriers were frozen on Chilcoot and the third drowned in the open water of Thirty Mile."