Chortling, Ore City looked at the camp hoodoo in triumph.--_That_ should hold him for a while. "I wish you luck," said Uncle Bill, his complacency returning, "but Ore City ain't the Rand. You'll never pull your money back." "And in our own country they send 'juice' two hundred and forty-five miles from Au Sable to Baltic Creek, Michigan." * * * * * Before his departure Bruce had arranged with Porcupine Jim to load a toboggan with provisions and snowshoe down to Toy. Mr. Dill was delighted when he learned this fortunate circumstance, for it enabled him to make a trip to the river for the purpose, as he elaborately explained, of "looking out a power-site, and the best route to string the wires." While he was gone, properties to the value of half a million in the aggregate changed hands--but no cash. It was like the good old days to come again, to see the embryo magnates whispering in corners, to feel once more a delicious sense of mystery and plotting in the air. Real estate advanced in leaps and bounds and "Lemonade Dan" overhauled the bar fixtures in the Bucket o' Blood, and stuffed a gunny-sack into a broken window pane with a view to opening up. In every shack there was an undercurrent of excitement and after the dull days of monotony few could calm themselves to a really good night's sleep. They talked in thousands and the clerk's stock of Cincos, that had been dead money on his hands for over three years, "moved" in three days--sold out to the last cigar! When the time arrived that they had calculated Dill should return, even to the hour, the person who was coming back from the end of the snow tunnel at the front door of the Hinds House, that commanded a good view of the trail, always met someone going out to ask if there was "any sight of 'em?" and he, in turn, took his stand at the mouth of the tunnel, until driven in by the cold. In this way, there was nearly always someone doing lookout duty. Ore City's brow was corrugated with anxiety when Dill and Porcupine Jim had exceeded by three days the time allotted them for their stay. Wouldn't it be like the camp's confounded luck if Capital fell off of something and broke its neck? Their relief was almost hysterical when one evening at sunset Lannigan shouted joyfully: "Here they come!" They dashed through the tunnel to see Mr. Dill dragging one foot painfully after the other to the hotel. He seemed indifferent to the boisterous greeting, groaning merely: "Oh-h-h, what a hill!" "We been two days a makin' it," Jim vouchsafed cheerfully. "Last night we slept out on the snow." "You seem some stove up." Uncle Bill eyed Dill critically. "And looks like you have fell off twenty pounds." "Stove up!" exclaimed Dill plaintively. "Between Jim's cooking and that hill I took up four notches in my belt. I wouldn't make that trip again in winter if the Alaska Treadwell was awaiting me as a gift at the other end."