“If we catch 'em we'll never pass 'em,” he panted. “Lord, what a pace they're hittin'. Dollars to doughnuts they're no chechakos. They're the real sour-dough variety, you can stack on that.” Smoke was leading when they finally caught up, and he was glad to ease to a walk at their heels. Almost immediately he got the impression that the one nearer him was a woman. How this impression came, he could not tell. Hooded and furred, the dark form was as any form; yet there was a haunting sense of familiarity about it. He waited for the next flame of the aurora, and by its light saw the smallness of the moccasined feet. But he saw more--the walk, and knew it for the unmistakable walk he had once resolved never to forget. “She's a sure goer,” Shorty confided hoarsely. “I'll bet it's an Indian.” “How do you do, Miss Gastell?” Smoke addressed her. “How do you do,” she answered, with a turn of the head and a quick glance. “It's too dark to see. Who are you?” “Smoke.” She laughed in the frost, and he was certain it was the prettiest laughter he had ever heard. “And have you married and raised all those children you were telling me about?” Before he could retort, she went on. “How many chechakos are there behind?” “Several thousand, I imagine. We passed over three hundred. And they weren't wasting any time.” “It's the old story,” she said bitterly. “The new-comers get in on the rich creeks, and the old-timers, who dared and suffered and made this country, get nothing. Old-timers made this discovery on Squaw Creek--how it leaked out is the mystery--and they sent word up to all the old-timers on Sea Lion. But it's ten miles farther than Dawson, and when they arrive they'll find the creek staked to the skyline by the Dawson chechakos. It isn't right, it isn't fair, such perversity of luck.” “It is too bad,” Smoke sympathized. “But I'm hanged if I know what you're going to do about it. First come, first served, you know.” “I wish I could do something,” she flashed back at him. “I'd like to see them all freeze on the trail, or have everything terrible happen to them, so long as the Sea Lion stampede arrived first.” “You've certainly got it in for us hard,” he laughed. “It isn't that,” she said quickly. “Man by man, I know the crowd from Sea Lion, and they are men. They starved in this country in the old days, and they worked like giants to develop it. I went through the hard times on the Koyukuk with them when I was a little girl. And I was with them in the Birch Creek famine, and in the Forty Mile famine. They are heroes, and they deserve some reward, and yet here are thousands of green softlings who haven't earned the right to stake anything, miles and miles ahead of them. And now, if you'll forgive my tirade, I'll save my breath, for I don't know when you and all the rest may try to pass dad and me.” No further talk passed between Joy and Smoke for an hour or so, though he noticed that for a time she and her father talked in low tones.