Armed to the teeth, we were still shivering in the cold
darkness well on into the night, and at some distance
from the dying embers, when suddenly--we nearly
screamed--there was a sound of a voice. It was a man's
voice; he was angry; he was cursing. A flame shot up
beneath the trees. We saw Gallup on his knees blowing
up the hemlock coals. He had landed, pulled his canoe
on to the bank, and come up to within a few yards of
where we stood without our hearing the faintest sound.
He said no word. He cooked himself no food. He just
made a huge fire, spread his blanket beside the comforting
blaze, curled up, and fell asleep. We soon followed his
example. Probably he had enjoyed a square meal with
the Indians, then sauntered home to bed.... Next day
we reached Rainy Lake City, paid him off, and saw him
push off upstream in his Maine canoe without having
uttered a single word. He just counted the dollar bills
and vanished.
Rainy Lake City was a few acres roughly cleared from the primæval forest, yet with avenues cut through the dense trees to indicate streets where tramcars were to run at some future date. River, lake and forest combined to make an enchanting scene. There were perhaps a hundred men there. There was gold, but there was no gold-dust, no shining pans to sift the precious sand; in a word, no placer-mining. It was all quartz; machinery to crush the quartz had to be dragged in over the ice in the winter. Capital was essential, large lumps of capital. A word of inquiry in New York could have told me this. I felt rather guilty, but very happy. Paxton and R.M. were philosophical. No word of blame escaped their lips. They had the right to curse me, whereas both played the part of Balaam. Even at the time I thought this odd. Neither of them seemed to care a straw. "We'll stake a claim," said R.M. at intervals. Perhaps both were so pleased to have arrived safely that they neither grumbled nor abused me. The truth was that, like myself, though for rather different reasons, both of them
were relieved to be "away from home." The engineer,
