He woke about five in the afternoon; cooked himself another meal, chained up the dogs, then climbed the hill. An hour later, from a point of vantage on the mountain spur that rose just back of his cabin, he looked down upon Easy Money bar. Not without a thrill he noticed that his bedrock drain was no longer that, but a real cut. "I'll bet there's some real money in those boxes at this minute!" he cried. Critically he inspected the several channels of the river beyond Easy Money and other bars, then the flat beyond these. Evidently satisfied with the results of his reconnoitre, he returned to his camp. His first act thereafter was to make a measuring stick and drive it into the river bottom a few yards from the shore. Next day Lucky Jim took the dogs, crossed the divide and spent the day fishing on a stream on the other side. On his return with a mess of trout the first thing he did was to look at his measuring stick. The river, it told him, had gone down three inches during the past twenty-four hours. "Five more days," he yawned. "Ho hum." The customary thing on placer claims in Alaska is to make a clean-up every week. There was a special reason why the boxes would be cleaned up on Easy Money bar at the end of that period: If the river continued to fall and no rain came, there would not be sufficient water to sluice with. One or two men can't raise a whole river. In the afternoon of the sixth day after his ejection, Lucky Jim trekked up the river by way of the mountain ridge. When well beyond Easy Money bar he dropped down to the river, then crossed it on a log. He walked down the beach until within a half-mile of Easy Money bar, then disappeared into the flat--just plumb dropped out of sight. This was made possible by reason of the fact that for years innumerable the flat had annually been inundated for miles back from the river during the high water in the spring, and the receding waters had honeycombed the black muck to a depth of eighteen inches to two feet. On top of the "niggerheads," or pillars of muck thus formed, grew wild bunch grass. Through this maze Lucky Jim started to crawl downstream, secure in the fact that no one could see him. He arrived at a point in line with Easy Money bar at nine o'clock, mud from his nose to the toes of his moccasins. In places he had been obliged to crawl through several inches of exceedingly dirty water. But he got there. Between his place of concealment and Easy Money bar lay two other bars, one of which was covered with willows. For almost another day he lay and watched both men at work in the cut. And what a cut! "They've put through the boxes just about double the dirt that I could have done alone!" he whispered to himself. At length Chenoa Pete left the cut and strolled up to the cabin. Mike Haggart continued to work alone.