Four days later the eight men returned to their claims, leaving the Gordons in possession of the largest and most completely equipped cabin on Myrtle. Ten by twelve, it stood at a sharp bend of the creek surrounded by the thicket of spruce, all chinked, banked, and furnished, even to a rocking chair which one of the men had devised for the comfort of Mrs. Gordon. Nor did the cabin alone bespeak the handiwork of the miners, for conveniently grouped about it were an ample dog shelter, a pole meat cache, and a huge pile of dry wood, all chopped and ready for the stove, a reserve supply against the coming of the strong cold. During the fall Gordon prospected the bars up and down the creek, staking several likely locations and panning, before the freeze-up, considerably better than wages. When snow fell two men on Slate Creek “went pardners,” and having no use for two dog outfits, Gordon bought a team of six good dogs and a sled. Then he and Lou took the outfit and struck into the hills for caribou, returning a few days later with six fine carcases which were hoisted onto the meat cache. The days rapidly shortened, and with the long nights came the cold. Gordon was burning in, now, on a bar close to the cabin. Each day at noon the sun hung lower and lower in the heavens, his rays weakened, and the shadows lengthened upon the snow. At last came the day when sunset followed sunrise with no interval of time between, and thereafter for many long days the only sunlight to be seen was the noontime gilding of distant mountain peaks. Daylight came to mean dim twilight, and a great deal of Gordon’s work was done by the light of the moon and stars. But he worked with a will, for his frequent test pans showed that he had struck pay. Lou helped, even with the cutting and carrying of cordwood to keep up the fire that thawed the gravel, and when she was not at her father’s side she was off in the hills with the dogs and her little twenty-two rifle with which she added no small contribution to the family larder in the way of rabbits and ptarmigan. As Gordon chopped his wood, and laboriously man-hauled it on a rude travois to his workings, as he tended his fire, and as he shoveled out his layer of thawed gravel, his thoughts were always upon the time when he could afford a “b’iler” to loosen his gravel with steam. The boiler got to be an obsession. He talked boiler for hours on end to his wife and daughter, and he talked it to the men of Myrtle and Slate Creeks when chance threw them together. In vain the men argued that the cost of bringing a boiler into the Myrtle Creek country would be prohibitive, and that even if one were brought the spotted nature of the workings would necessitate its frequent removal to new locations. But Gordon remained obdurate. And amused, the men went their ways and among themselves dubbed him B’iler Gordon.