“No, I ain’t crazy. Leastwise I don’t call it that, an’ I’m the only one that wins or loses by what I do. No, it ain’t craziness, it’s jest naturally a honin’ I’ve got to hit the trail--to go places an’ see places, that other folks ain’t be’n to an’ seen. It’s--say, did you ever hear the _opposite_ word to homesick?” Camillo shook his head. “I mean, it’s like this, some folks get homesick, just get to pinin’ an’ mopin’ to get back to the place they call home, an’ when they get that way, an’ get it bad enough, there ain’t no place else looks good to ’em. They’ll quit any job, or whatever they’re doin’ an’ hit back home, an’ it don’t make no difference if home is a mud shanty. I knew an Injun once, he was a harpooner on a whaler, an’ he drawed down more money at the end of a voyage than all the rest of the Injuns in his tribe thought there was in the world. But he got homesick an’ quit cold when we run in to Valdez one time. Three or fours years later I run onto him way back in the Kuskokwim country, an’ he was dryin’ whitefish on a rack--but he was happy. He was home, an’ his home was a caribou hide stretched over a couple of willow sticks. Well, that’s the way with me--only just the opposite. I never had any home that I can remember. I run away from a foundlin’ home when I was somewheres around eight or nine, an’ I’ve be’n goin’ ever since. I reckon at first, I kep’ on the move because I didn’t want ’em to get me an’ take me back there, an’ after a while it got to be a habit. Till now it’s got so that after I’ve be’n in a place a while, I get homesick for someplace I ain’t never seen. I used to try to buck it, but it wasn’t any use. I’ve be’n in a lot of good places--places that ought to satisfy any man, but I’ve never be’n satisfied, an’ it ain’t long till I’d hit the trail.” “But, man, the gold! A hundred an’ forty dollars to the pan an’ you ain’t nowheres near the bottom! There ain’t nothin’ like it ever be’n heard of before! Where in hell are you ever goin’ to make another strike like that?” “Maybe I won’t,” replied MacShane, gravely, “An’ then, again, maybe I will.” “There ain’t nothin’ like it in the world!” “Maybe that’s true, an’ maybe it ain’t. There ain’t no one can prove it. A year ago there wasn’t any such thing as a hundred dollars to the pan in the world. Next year or next month, I may be takin’ out a thousan’ dollars to the pan, a thousand miles from here--an’ I may not be takin’ out wages.” “Where you goin’, an’ when?” asked Camillo Bill. “North,” answered MacShane, “That’s all I know about it myself. The hunch I’ve got now says North, an’ North I go--North to God knows where!” “When?” “Tonight!” “Tonight! Ain’t you going back to yer claim?” “No. The hunch is pullin’ strong. I didn’t know when I left I wasn’t goin’ back or I’d have brought along some more stuff, but, shucks, there ain’t nothin’ there that I can’t get somewheres else, so I’ll let her stay.” “What you goin’ to do with your claim?” “Sell it.”