The journey was ended. Best's boats were unloaded, his men had been paid off, and now his troupe had scattered, seeking lodgings. As in a dream Pierce Phillips joined the drifting current of humanity that flowed through the long front streets and eddied about the entrances of amusement places. He asked himself if he were indeed awake, if, after all, this was his Ultima Thule? Already the labor, the hardship, the adventure of the trip seemed imaginary; even the town itself was unreal. Dawson was both a disappointment and a satisfaction to Pierce. It was not what he had expected and it by no means filled the splendid picture he had painted in his fancy. Crude, raw, unfinished, small, it was little more than Dyea magnified. But in enterprise it was tremendous; hence it pleased and it thrilled the youth. He breathed its breath, he drank the wine of its intoxication, he walked upon air with his head in the clouds. Pierce longed for some one to whom he could confide his feeling of triumph, but nowhere did he recognize a face. Finally he strolled into one of the larger saloons and gambling-houses, and was contentedly eying the scene when he felt a gaze fixed upon him. He turned his head, opened his lips to speak, then stiffened in his tracks. He could not credit his senses, for there, lounging at ease against the bar, his face distorted into an evil grin, stood Joe McCaskey! Pierce blinked; he found that his jaw had dropped in amazement. McCaskey enjoyed the sensation he had created; he leered at his former camp-mate, and in his expression was a hint of that same venom he had displayed when he had run the gauntlet at Sheep Camp after his flogging, He broke the spell of Pierce's amazement and proved himself to be indeed a reality by uttering a greeting. Pierce was inclined to ignore the salutation, but curiosity got the better of him and he answered: "Well! This is a surprise. Do you own a pair of seven-league boots or--what?" McCaskey bared his teeth further. In triumph he said: "Thought you'd lost me, didn't you? But I fooled you-fooled all of you. I jumped out to the States and caught the last boat for St. Michael, made connections there with the last up-river packet, and--here I am. I don't quit; I'm a finisher." Pierce noted the emphasis with which Joe's last words were delivered, but as yet his curiosity was unsatisfied. He wondered if the fellow was sufficiently calloused to disregard his humiliating experience or if he proposed in some way to conceal it. Certainly he had not evaded recognition, nor had he made the slightest attempt to alter his appearance. From his bold insouciance it seemed evident that he was totally indifferent as to who recognized him. Either the man possessed moral courage of the extremest sort or else an unbelievable effrontery.