"Hullo, Scotty! By all that's wonderful. I was just going to mail you a letter."

It was the Prodigal, very well dressed and spruce-looking.

"Say, I'm so tickled I got you; we're going to start in two days."

"Start! Where?" I asked.

"Why, for the Golden North, for the land of the Midnight Sun, for the treasure-troves of the Klondike Valley."

"You maybe," I said soberly; "but I can't."

"Yes you can, and you are, old sport. I fixed all that. Come on, I want to talk to you. I went home and did the returned prodigal stunt. The old man was mighty decent when I told him it was no good, I couldn't go into the glue factory yet awhile. Told him I had the gold-bug awful bad and nothing but a trip up there would cure me. He was rather tickled with the idea. Staked me handsomely, and gave me a year to make good. So here I am, and you're in with me. I'm going to grubstake you. Mind, it's a business proposition. I've got to have some one, and when you make the big strike you've got to divvy up."

I said something about having secured employment as an under-gardener.

"Pshaw! you'll soon be digging gold-nuggets instead of potatoes. Why, man, it's the chance of a lifetime, and anybody else would jump at it.

Of course, if you're afraid of the hardships and so on----"

"No," I said quickly, "I'll go."

"Ha!" he laughed, "you're too much of a coward to be afraid. Well, we're going to be blighted Argonauts, but we've got to get busy over our outfits. We haven't got any too much time."

So we hustled around. It seemed as if half of San Francisco was Klondike-crazy. On every hand was there speculation and excitement. All the merchants had their outfitting departments, and wild and vague were their notions as to what was required. We did not do so badly, though like every one else we bought much that was worthless and foolish.

Suddenly I bethought me of Salvation Jim, and I told the Prodigal of my new friend.

"He's an awfully good sort," I said; "white all through; all kinds of experience, and he's going alone."

"Why," said the Prodigal, "that's just the man we want. We'll ask him to join us."

I brought the two together, and it was arranged. So it came about that we three left San Francisco on the fourth day of March to seek our fortunes in the Frozen North.

BOOK II

THE TRAIL

Gold! We leaped from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.

Gold! We wheeled in the furrow, fired with the faith of fools.

Fearless, unfound, unfitted, far from the night and the cold, Heard we the clarion summons, followed the master-lure--Gold!

CHAPTER I

"Say! you're looking mighty blue. Cheer up, darn you! What's the matter?" said the Prodigal affectionately.

And indeed there was matter enough, for had I not just received letters from home, one from Garry and one from Mother? Garry's was gravely censorious, almost remonstrant. Mother, he said, was poorly, and greatly put out over my escapade. He pointed out that I was in a fair way of being a rolling stone, and hoped that I would at once give up my mad notion of the South Seas and soberly proceed to the Northwest.

Mother's letter was reproachful, in parts almost distressful. She was failing, she said, and she begged me to be a good son, give up my wanderings and join my cousin at once. Also she enclosed post-office orders for forty pounds. Her letter, written in a fine faltering hand and so full of gentle affection, brought the tears to my eyes; so that it was very bleakly I leaned against the ship's rail and watched the bustle of departure. Poor Mother! Dear old Garry! With what tender longing I thought of those two in far-away Glengyle, the Scotch mist silvering the heather and the wind blowing caller from the sea. Oh, for the clean, keen breath of it! Yet alas, every day was the memory fading, and every day was I fitting more snugly into the new life.

"I've just heard from the folks," I said, "and I feel like going back on you."

"Oh, beat it," he cried; "you can't renig now. You've got to see the thing through. Mothers are all like that when you cut loose from their apron-strings. Ma's scared stiff about me, thinks the devil's got an option on my future sure. They get wised up pretty soon. What you want to do is to get busy and make yourself acquainted. Here I've been snooping round for the last two hours, and got a line on nearly every one on board. Say! Of all the locoed outfits this here aggregation has got everything else skinned to a hard-boiled finish. Most of them are indoor men, ink-slingers and calico snippers; haven't done a day's hard work in their lives, and don't know a pick from a mattock. They've got a notion they've just got to get up there and pick big nuggets out of the water like cherries out of a cocktail. It's the limit."

"Tell me about them," I said.

"Well, see that young fellow standing near us?"

I looked. He was slim, with gentle, refined features and an unnaturally fresh complexion.

"That fellow was a pen-pusher in a mazuma emporium--I mean a bank clerk.

Pinklove's his name. He wanted to get hitched to some girl, but the directors wouldn't stand for it. Now he's chucked his job and staked his savings on this trip. There's his girl in the crowd."

Bedded in that mosaic of human faces I saw one that was all sweetness, yet shamelessly tear-stained.

"Lucky beggar," I said, "to have some one who cares so much about his going."

"Unlucky, you mean, lad. You don't want to have any strings on you when you play this game."

He pointed to a long-haired young man in a flowing-end tie.

"See that pale-faced, artistic-looking guy alongside him. That's his partner. Ineffectual, moony sort of a mut. He's a wood-carver; they call him Globstock; told me his knowledge of wood-carving would come in handy when we came to make boats at Lake Bennett. Then there's a third. See that little fellow shooting off his face?"

I saw a weazened, narrow-chested mannikin, with an aggressive certainty of feature.

"He's a professor, plumb-full of book dope on the Yukon. He's Mister Wise Mike. He knows it all. Hear his monologue on 'How It Should Be Done.' He's going to live on deck to inure himself to the rigours of the Arctic climate. Works with a pair of spring dumb-bells to get up his muscle so's he can shovel out the nuggets."

Our eyes roved round from group to group, picking out characteristic figures.

"See that big bleached-blond Englishman? Came over with me on the Pullman from New York. 'Awfully bored, don't you know.' When we got to 'Frisco, he says to me: 'Thank God, old chappie, the worst part of the journey's over.' Then there's Romulus and Remus, the twins, strapping young fellows. Only way I know them apart is one laces his boots tight, the other slack. They think the world of each other."

He swung around to where Salvation Jim was talking to two men.

"There's a pair of winners. I put my money on them. Nothing on earth can stop those fellows, native-born Americans, all grit and get-up. See that tall one smoking a cigar and looking at the women? He's an athlete.

Name's Mervin; all whipcord and whalebone; springy as a bent bow. He's a type of the Swift. He's bound to get there. See the other. Hewson's his name; solid as a tower; muscled like a bear; built from the ground up.

He represents the Strong. Look at the grim, determined face of him. You can't down a man like that."

He indicated another group.

"Now there's three birds of prey. Bullhammer, Marks and Mosher. The big, pig-eyed heavy-jowled one is Bullhammer. He's in the saloon business.

The middle-sized one in the plug hat is Marks. See his oily, yellow face dotted with pimples. He's a phoney piece of work; calls himself a mining broker. The third's Jake Mosher. He's an out-and-out gambler, a sure-thing man, once was a parson."

I looked again. Mosher had just taken off his hat. His high-domed head was of monumental baldness, his eyes close-set and crafty, his nose negligible. The rest of his face was mostly beard. It grew black as the Pit to near the bulge of his stomach, and seemed to have drained his scalp in its rank luxuriance. Across the deck came the rich, oily tones of his voice.