There was a fever in the very air he breathed, the food he ate, the water he drank. Life ran at a furious pace and it inspired in him supreme exhilaration to be swept along by it. Over all this new land was a purple haze of mystery--a sense of the Unknown right at hand. The Beyond was beckoning; it was as if great curtains had parted and he beheld vistas of tremendous promise. Keenest of all, perhaps, was his joy at discovering himself. Appreciation of this miraculous rebirth was fullest when, at rare intervals, he came off the trail and back to Dyea, for then he renewed his touch with that other world, and the contrast became more evident. Dyea throbbed nowadays beneath a mighty head of steam; it had grown surprisingly and it was intensely alive. Phillips never came back to it without an emotional thrill and a realization of great issues, great undertakings, in process of working out. The knowledge that he had a part in them aroused in him an intoxicating pleasure. Dyea had become a metropolis of boards and canvas, of logs and corrugated iron. Stores had risen, there were hotels and lodging-houses, busy restaurants and busier saloons whence came the sounds of revelry by night and by day. It was a healthy revelry, by the way, like the boisterous hilarity of a robust boy. Dyea was just that--an overgrown, hilarious boy. There was nothing querulous or sickly about this child; it was strong, it was sturdy, it was rough; it romped with everybody and it grew out of its clothes overnight. Every house, every tent, in the town was crowded; supply never quite overtook demand. Pack-animals were being imported, bridges were being built, the swamps were being hastily corduroyed; there was talk of a tramway up the side of the Chilkoot, but the gold rush increased daily, and, despite better means of transportation, the call for packers went unanswered and the price per pound stayed up. New tribes of Indians from down the coast had moved thither, babies and baggage, and they were growing rich. The stampede itself resembled the spring run of the silver salmon--it was equally mad, equally resistless. It was equally wasteful, too, for birds and beasts of prey fattened upon it and the outsetting current bore a burden of derelicts. Values were extravagant; money ran like water; the town was wide open and it took toll from every new-comer. The ferment was kept active by a trickle of outgoing Klondikers, a considerable number of whom passed through on their way back to the States. These men had been educated to the liberal ways of the "inside" country and were prodigal spenders. The scent of the salt sea, the sight of new faces, the proximity of the open world, were like strong drink to them, hence they untied their mooseskin "pokes" and scattered the contents like sawdust. Their tales of the new El Dorado stimulated a similar recklessness among their hearers.