The boys were only too glad to thus find a mentor and friend, and cheerfully agreed to everything. An Alaska mining claim, according to United States law, consists of twenty acres, generally laid out in a parallelogram, 330 feet each side of the creek, making a width of 660 in all. Their five claims meant a hundred acres, and, if even moderately rich, were a fortune. In the end they had the entire creek staked from source to mouth, the number of powers of attorney which Blenship produced being prodigious. In spite of the hard work, perhaps because they were living well on civilized food, they never seemed to tire, and were as frisky as young colts. Ten days had passed, and never a sign of the invasion of prospectors which Blenship had so confidently predicted. Since the father-in-law episode the little man had given no signs of his “queerness,” unless this story of thousands to the south were one. On the other hand, he seemed very sane and shrewd, and kindly in all ways. He shared his provisions in return for help in staking his numerous claims, and the boys could see that his advice was friendly and worth following. The day the last stake was driven he insisted that they celebrate, and got up a bountiful meal with his own hand, making a bread pudding with real raisins from his stores, which filled the boys with unalloyed delight. “There!” he said, as he lighted his pipe after the meal was finished, “now we’re fixed. If old Tom Lane comes up here and wants the earth, he can have it, but he’ll have to pay good for it. You and I could work those claims and take out a few hundred dollars’ worth of gold a day until the ground freezes up, and then we wouldn’t more’n pay our expenses up here and back and the cost of living. That isn’t the way money is made in the mining business. You just stake the claims and hold on to them until the man comes along who has the millions to work ’em in a big way. There’s several of those men up in Nome already, but the king of them all is old Tom Lane. He’s got his men out spying round all over the country, and it won’t be long before one of them drops on to this place. Then we’ll drive a bargain that’ll make the old man’s eyes stick out. Meantime I’ll just show you boys how to build and work a rocker, and we’ll get out a few hundred a day and wait developments.” Blenship showed them how to handle the rocker that very day, and left them at Ptarmigan Bend gleefully running sand through it while he prospected his various claims more thoroughly. [Illustration: PROSPECTOR AND HIS OUTFIT]