But, from the first the new camp differed essentially from the older camps where it had been the wont of the sourdoughs to foregather for a winter of idleness and revelry. For, close upon the discovery of gold in the upper country, came the discovery of the process of “burning in,” and in that year the Yukon saw the first winter mining of her history. These were the days of the unspoiled Yukon, before the stampede from the outside filled the valleys and the creek beds with its hordes of tin-horns and _chechakos_--the days when a man’s word was as good as his pile and a card would be turned unquestionably upon a finger bet for thousands. But with Christmas hard upon them, despite the fact of the new found winter mining, and despite the fact that the sourdoughs were gouging in gravel richer by far than the gravel of their fondest dreams, one by one the fires were allowed to die out in the shafts along the creek beds. The sourdoughs were drifting into the new camp. For Christmas is Christmas--and what is a week or two of work, when the bulk of the winter is still ahead, and when each test pan shows coarse gold and more of it than the luckiest of them had ever taken from many test pans? And what is a week or two of work when the white lights are calling--the clang of the dance hall piano, the feel of a woman held close, the smooth purr of the wheel, the run of the cards at the poker tables, the warm grip and glow of the liquor, and the comradery of men who thudded heavy sacks onto the bar from the mouths of which coarse gold was shaken onto the scales?