"Now, you know on such occasions, above all others, one does not want the whole country at one's heels, so we tried our best to shake them. We postponed our trip until the second day; the women in the meantime gettin' our grub cooked. We then took the bells off our dog collars and packed our sleds behind closed doors; but it was no go. In spite of all our precautions three dog-teams followed our trail as we slipped stealthily out of camp at midnight. The moon shone brightly and the snow was not too deep. The boys kept at a respectful distance behind us, and we mushed along between low hills mostly up the streams on the ice. "To make my story shorter, we staked what we wanted of the creek, and let the other fellows in on what was left. After that, without sleeping, but with a hasty meal, we put back home again as fast as our dogs would travel. "Three months later, when the snow was about gone, and we thought the time ripe for prospectin', I took my two men and an outfit and gave that blamed old creek a fair trial. We hustled and rustled to beat the band. We shovelled, panned, built dams, and worked like beavers in water above our knees. We moved our tents further up on the bank at midnight at the risin' of the creek durin' a hard rain--but, egad! after two weeks of that sort of thing, no gold could we find. Not a color! We cursed and tore around something fierce among the Queen's English, but it did not help matters a particle. "There was no gold there. "When we reported to the little woman she would not believe a word of it. She did not think we had tried to find it. Perhaps we had not gone deep enough. We should have waited until midsummer when we could have done better work; and a lot of other things of like description. When I insisted that we had done the very best we possibly could, and that there was positively no gold there, she still persisted in sayin' she wanted that bunch of claims recorded. In vain I told her it was no use; the creek was no good, and to record the claims was a waste of money. "While I talked, the little woman stood lookin' in an absent-minded way before her. When I had finished she turned toward me with considerable spirit, and almost with anger said, the tears comin' into her eyes meanwhile, 'I will never again ask you to stake a claim for me, so there! and she ran into the next room and shut the door. "The claims were never recorded. "Well, boys, she kept her word, and I wish she hadn't. I would be willin' to let her pick out creeks for me forever, for, say, let me tell you, fellows," dropping his voice and taking the pipe from between his teeth he knocked its ashes out upon the cold hearth, "that creek bed was solid stream tin; pure cassiterite, the best on the Seward Peninsula, and a whole fortune for anyone; but we did not know it.