They followed him inside and ranged up against the long bar where of yore a half-dozen nimble bar-keepers found little time to loaf. The great room, ordinarily aroar with life, was still and gloomy as a tomb. There was no rattling of chips, no whirring of ivory balls. Roulette and faro tables were like gravestones under their canvas covers. No women's voices drifted merrily from the dance- room behind. Ol' Jim Cummings wiped a glass with palsied hands, and Kink Mitchell scrawled his initials on the dust-covered bar. "Where's the girls?" Hootchinoo Bill shouted, with affected geniality. "Gone," was the ancient bar-keeper's reply, in a voice thin and aged as himself, and as unsteady as his hand. "Where's Bidwell and Barlow?" "Gone." "And Sweetwater Charley?" "Gone." "And his sister?" "Gone too." "Your daughter Sally, then, and her little kid?" "Gone, all gone." The old man shook his head sadly, rummaging in an absent way among the dusty bottles. "Great Sardanapolis! Where?" Kink Mitchell exploded, unable longer to restrain himself. "You don't say you've had the plague?" "Why, ain't you heerd?" The old man chuckled quietly. "They-all's gone to Dawson." "What-like is that?" Bill demanded. "A creek? or a bar? or a place?" "Ain't never heered of Dawson, eh?" The old man chuckled exasperatingly. "Why, Dawson's a town, a city, bigger'n Forty Mile. Yes, sir, bigger'n Forty Mile." "I've ben in this land seven year," Bill announced emphatically, "an' I make free to say I never heard tell of the burg before. Hold on! Let's have some more of that whisky. Your information's flabbergasted me, that it has. Now just whereabouts is this Dawson-place you was a-mentionin'?" "On the big flat jest below the mouth of Klondike," ol' Jim answered. "But where has you-all ben this summer?" "Never you mind where we-all's ben," was Kink Mitchell's testy reply. "We-all's ben where the skeeters is that thick you've got to throw a stick into the air so as to see the sun and tell the time of day. Ain't I right, Bill?" "Right you are," said Bill. "But speakin' of this Dawson-place how like did it happen to be, Jim?" "Ounce to the pan on a creek called Bonanza, an' they ain't got to bed-rock yet." "Who struck it?" "Carmack." At mention of the discoverer's name the partners stared at each other disgustedly. Then they winked with great solemnity. "Siwash George," sniffed Hootchinoo Bill. "That squaw-man," sneered Kink Mitchell. "I wouldn't put on my moccasins to stampede after anything he'd ever find," said Bill. "Same here," announced his partner. "A cuss that's too plumb lazy to fish his own salmon. That's why he took up with the Indians. S'pose that black brother-in-law of his,--lemme see, Skookum Jim, eh?--s'pose he's in on it?" The old bar-keeper nodded. "Sure, an' what's more, all Forty Mile, exceptin' me an' a few cripples." "And drunks," added Kink Mitchell. "No-sir-ee!" the old man shouted emphatically.