Drawing by Lynn Bogue Hunt.“The spirits vanished . . . but only she who led himreturned. He could see her through the scud.” The Return of Dutch Fritz—see page 535.

The Return of Dutch Fritz 5 3 5

weather conditions, and thus cover fourmiles in the day. At the noon hour Iwalk another two miles, and so six milesa day are accounted for. Thus, there re-mains only a daily average walk of eightmiles for recreation and relaxation. Itwill be seen, therefore, when looked at inthis way, that the effort one is required toput forth is not a prodigious one. Andyet, each morning and evening, I see scoresof young men—not half my age—ridingfrom their homes to their places of busi-ness, and vice versa, when the one fromthe other is measured by a distance ofonly a fraction of a mile. These youngmen probably do not walk each day adistance exceeding two or three miles. Ifindications such as these mean anything,

they mean in course of time the sappingof the virility of the nation. However,the habits of each generation change, andwe will hope that the habits of the youngmen of to-day in this respect are not hereto stay, but that they are destined tovanish before a more just appreciation ofthe value of walking as an aid to goodhealth and long life.

It will probably occur to someone toask how I was enabled to keep a truerecord of the distance I traversed. Inanswer I will say that I carried a pe-dometer regulated to my own length ofstep, and I was satisfied as to its ac-curacy. I frequently tested it over meas-ured distances, and found it uniformlycorrect.

THE RETURN OF DUTCH FRITZ

By ROBERT DUNN

THE city fathers of Tyono were dis-posed carelessly on the stoop of the“hotel.” They felt seedy and bored.

The steam-whaler Polaris was droppingdown the snowy bay, and the delirium ofgetting from the States the first eggs,whiskey, and newspapers of 1900 was al-ready stale. Having settled the ChineseWar and the Paris Exposition with a fewplatitudes of the pick-ax, the fathers werediscussing the coming Fourth o’ July gun-raffle in Nell’s saloon, and reports fromover the glacier, brought by Siwash Billum,that Indian in the interior were starvingto death by the dozen.

Three thousand men with gold fever,imagining a boulevard led to Klondikefrom Tyono, had been dumped on its mudflats two years before, to find that nohuman being had ever crossed the highAlps overhead. Half saw the glacierpouring from them-the one “avenue”inland-and fled; half tackled the ice,which swallowed some in snow slides, letmany through ice bridges, and froze moreon sledges in its 40-mile rise to 5,000 feetabove the sea, where Nature wages, year

in and out, the worst blizzard battles onher earth. A few reached the interior, todie of scurvy or starve; more crawled backto the sea, desperate, penniless. An armycaptain, landing at Tyono the next spring,reported that of the thousand men campedthere, 700 were insane. They babbled of agray female creature, a “glacier demon,”that tried to lure them down crevasses.

Thus Tyono, like most cities with anappalling past, was now very, very dead.The pioneers and imbeciles of a stampedehaving fled—the heroes to win the sub-arctic world, the unfit to Seattle—thereremained in town a little band, too wiseto rustle with gold pans in mountains, toostrong to die of drink or cold. They livedon odd jobs about the new army bar-racks, and on the faith that Tyono, theonly spot in 400 miles of coast not ice-covered or on end, must some day be the’Frisco of the North. Real Alaskans werethey, men with good hearts but a bettereye for humor, and the best known thirstfor “houch”—the land’s substitute for rye—which you make from mouldy flour andsheep-dip plug.

5 3 6 The Re tu rn o f Dutch Fr i t z

Jack Marks, who at twenty had lefthis father’s law desk (he that was Senatorfrom Idaho), and the Hailey bar-room ina moment of remorse, pointed to a chunkyfigure laboring in the torrent bed, calledGlacier Street, from the direction of SiwashBillum’s camp.

“Suffering Judas! Who is he?” criedJack; and the crowd raised itself on el-bows.

“Fritz”—“Dutch Fritz”—“CountFritz,” “The old geezer,” came the voices;and having wondered, with chagrin, whythey had missed his landing from thePolaris, they asked in turn:

“But what the ——’s he doing back intown again?”

“First thing, you see, Fritz has beenhearing from Billum, of how Stickwanand his daughter Nannasnitnaw is starvin’acrost the glaysher,” drawled old Silas,who, white-haired and eighty, never havingleft Tyono, had nursed the insane of ’99 asthey came from the ice, and since had been“touched” on hygiene. “He never wasto home unless sitting on ice or feedingSiwashes. Staked claims on the summitsnows, I hear.”

“Ought to seen him in ’98,” observedCharles Amy, born in New Hampshire,and ‘broke’ in Wyoming with gold panand back-pack since the seventies. “Hequit us like we was Chineymen, there onJackass flat over the ice, and camped withthe old chief and thet Nannasnitnaw, andhelped ’em fry oil outer salmon guts; andby gum, I believe he ate their tsosch andmoose grease. Say”—and Amy’s crinkledface, a boy’s face for all that—relaxed.

“Say—wonder if he knows we knowabout this count business,” he added,soberly.

“Let on we don’t,” said Silas, “Leton we ain’t a bit surprised to see him.Horse him quiet.”

In ’98, Dutch Fritz had been the funnyman in the tragedy of Tyono. He hadhad no partners, no friends; on the beach,on the ice, he had shifted for himself,borrowing no grub, loaning none, askingno help, giving none, as he lifted his floursacks with block and, tackle up the glacierbenches. But he never froze, never waslost down crevasses, never saw ice demons,He had sold tea on the summit at 50 centsa cup, and cottonwood twigs, fetched

from Tyono in a day, at $1 each. So thecrowd called him “nutty,” “no good,”and granted him “crazy man’s luck.”After working his way to Seattle in ’99, astory got afloat at Tyono that Fritz wasthe younger son of a royal German prince,whose family income being too small tokeep the title in repair, the estates hadbeen confiscated by the Kaiser, accordingto a just Teutonic law, to swell what iscalled the “Guelph Fund.” Though thiswas true, Tyono did not believe it; buthad it, the dark, fat cheeks and puffy eyesof Fritz as he neared the hotel, wouldhave been only the better mark for thereal Alaskan with a hang-over.

Fritz was walking very fast; his yellowmackinaw coat doubled his breadth; hismarmot fur hat, his two pairs of Germansocks and the pilot biscuit in his hands,completed the comic sketch. He glancedfrom man to man like a frightened tamebear, and paused.

“Back lookin’ for yer crowns and scep-ters?” began old Silas carelessly.

“Back for a countess from the Siwashes,ain’t you?” said Marks. “You alwayswas bound to be squaw-man, Fritz.”

“Vel l , I doan’ know,” stammeredFritz, “I seen Siwashes vould make bettercountesses from some Yankee vimmen.”

The crowd sat upright. Fritz had neveranswered quite like that before.

“You hear about me, hey?” he asked;“I haf alvays vondered how soon shevould be. But royalty—she is a bumbeesness.”

The crowd laughed. But since the“josh” about royalty wasn’t going towork, they started on another tack.

“Stewin’ tea on the glaysher this year?”—from Silas.

“I am to my cache go, I left in ’98 acrossthe sommit,” answered Fritz.

“You ain’t got no grub there and youknow it,”the biscuit.

said Amy, quickly glancing at“Don’t you lie to us, hear.”

“Men come down off the glaysher thisspring,” said Silas looking to Amy, as forconfirmation, “says the starvin’ Siwasheshas robbed all our ’98 caches. You heardabout Stickwan and his daughter dyin’?”

“You hear dat too?” asked Fritz excit-edly, looking from one to another, hissallow eyes flashing,

“What’s that dirty paper you got in

The Return of Dutch Fr i tz 5 3 7

yer pocket?” said Amy, pointing to themackinaw.

“None of you beesness,” snapped Fritz,stuffing it out of sight; and he made abreak for the door.

“Hold a holt there,” said a dozen voices,and hands reached out for his woolly socksand stopped him. Marks observed to hisneighbor, “You’re on, ain’t you?” Therewas another pause.

“Now I tell you that Nanny-goat-sit-on-her wasn’t so bad for a Siwash, neither,”said Amy, as a wink was passed around.“She wouldn’t look so bum if you couldplay a hose on her first. Too bad she’sdead.”

“I tell you she ain’ dead,” blazed outFritz.

“Lots of them klootches could makegood with a white man,” continued Amy,calmly unheeding among the chuckles,“if they’d learn it sort of sickens us to seeso much dirt on the outside. And mixbannocks in a tin spittoon, the way I’veseen.”

“See his eyes flash. Look out, he’smad,” said a voice.

“I say, I hear you fetched it up neatwith that dossy Klootch*-Nannasnitnaw,”put in Launcelot Biggs, young Englishderelict; “taught her to read and write,eh? and more, too. Going to scatter bis-cuit crumbs on her grave, old sausage?”

“Shut up—Biggs—you!” interruptedMarks, who saw they had gone too far.But he was too late, for Fritz, like a glacierbear at bay, turned, and shouted, “Sayvon vord more, an’ I smash you Mr. Beeg.”

At first the crowd laughed a little wildly,then seeing Fritz’s passion, calmed, whilehe turned on them again, and said, as itwere a more appalling challenge, “I am tomy cache over de glaysher go, dese after-noon.”

Marks was the first to speak.“Not over the glacier, Fritz,” he said

slowly.“Oh, yaas, I dink so,” said Fritz, half

closing his little eyes.For once the gang looked at one another

in utter silence. They did not wink ortap their heads this time. Over the gla-cier at this season!

“A man might as well shoot himselfon this stoop as tackle the ice this month,”

*Indian woman—Sansisoo Klootch—White-man’s wife.

warned Silas. “She’s that slushy not acrevice bridge is safe. Calm nights yercan hear them avalanches thunder clearout in the bay. The fog up there cutswith a knife.”

“Oh I ain’t afraid of her,” said Fritzsmiling. “I knowed every inch of herin ’98. I guess she ain’t changed toomooch since den. I to de fourt’ benchget to-night, an’ my cache to-morrow.You feel de wind blow down from demountain—hein? Dot mean she is pleas-ant at de sommit.”

“All right for every month but July,”said Amy, “and you’re the first to knowthat, Fritz.”

“Better stay with us, Fritz,” said Jack.But Fritz only smiled, strode off the

stoop, and turned north among the cab-ins and stumps, into the strip of cotton-wood between ice and sea.

“’E’s crazy after all, ain’t he,” said Biggsto the gaping crowd.

“He ain’t goin’ for no cache, I tell youthat,” said Amy.

“Some fortune teller in Seattle haspulled his leg about diggin’ gold,” drawledSilas.

Marks shook his head, observing, “Fritzis more of a fool, or more of a man, thanwe guess, boys.”

Fritz stumbled out of the grove, andon over the desert of boulders, whereheat-waves throbbed, and sparse purpleflax bloomed in the choking silt. Theglacier-born torrent—spiteful, coffee-col-ored—thundered like drays on ironbridges, jouncing and pummeling stonesalong bottom, ready any day to wipe outTyono. From the glossy quicksands atthe ugly pot-hole where it vomited forthunder the gravelly ice, Fritz puffed upthe first hummocks and held a wet fingertoward the bay. Not a breath was stir-ring. He panted on. Red-brown andblue with gravels, the great ice twistedinto the mountains’ heart like the ribbedbelly of a snake. But what ailed the sun?Over the northern peaks the shimmerysky held only a huge sulphurous ring cir-cling a blear splash of gold. He foundhimself looking for the cairnes that markedthe ’98 trail. That was foolish, of course.His eyes smarted. Spick! Spick!—bub-bles of hot air escaped from the melting

5 3 8 The Re tu rn o f Dutch Fr i t z

ice, where queer pyramids of silt werewasting. How like a pond melting inApril in old Alsace! Home! The humblepride, the headstrong bitterness of his boy-hood, the glamor of goldseeking—all thathad sent him wandering when the law stolehis inheritance—Australia, Africa, lastand strongest, the call to the north—he re-lived all. He was old now. What outcastclothes he wore, what food he ate! His mo-ther and sister—where were they?—starv-ing in a peasant’s hut? What would theythink of this, the climax of his life? Had hebeen utterly selfish to leave them? Some-thing was very wrong with him, some-where. Why was he always the butt ofthe goldseekers, the outsider when dreamsof wealth made their talk serious?

He traveled for two hours; up, up, thewonderful broad avenue into the heartof the peaks. Cross-canyons gaped intopolar amphitheatres, here choked withramparts of bright azure ice, there with ashriveled arm of gravel like a mammothcrustacean dead in its shell. South, theTyono woods were a speck of brush, thebay a puddle, and the ice stream spreadover the flood-plain in threads of gold.No human speck was visible in the waste,which once had crawled with men. Manhere was a fly, alone on the ice-bound uni-verse. Fritz was glad, for man’s lonelyego expands apace with Nature in stupen-dous realms, and the bubble self is prickedto meet a fellow.

Glittering pinnacles now sprang abovelike an exhalation—the second bench.He wound upward among them; then onfor miles to the invisible third rampart,soon to be folded again in the clean-cav-erned ice of its three steep pitches, Hewas lifting himself from dripping crevasseto crevasse, upward out of gulch aftergulch to the cone of the hog-back ahead,when——

A drop of water spat on his foreheadfrom above; between him and the bay.He leaned back pulseless—dizzy—dig-ging his fingers into the rotting ice.

“Wh-oo-oo-oo, whoo-oo-oo,” sang thewind overhead, the dread south wind, themoisture-laden sea gale,—darting upwardsthrough the crevasses, terrifying, sicken-ing.

Atop the bench, a sudden, ghastlydarkness fell magically. Surely no sun-

light for a thousand years had cheered thebleak ice of that winter desolation. Faster,faster, warm winds roared up from thesea, were touched by the ice into iciermists, dropping, flaunting like evil spirits,scudding past in murky banners, enchant-ing peaks, glacier-walls, sea, into nothing-ness. That circle of packed ice criss-crossedwith very straight lines—that alone wasthe world. He leaned back on the gale amoment, and then—faced north. Hadn’t hebeen lost here in storms before?—and nowhe could case his aching eyes in the gloom.

Wide he opened them, and the fiendishpain gouged their sockets—the familiarache of snow blindness, which strikes afterthe sun is shrouded. Fritz staggered asecond—but kept on. Yes, now was thetime for courage. What mattered blind-ness, even in storm? Who could showFritz the way on this, his glacier? Thewind in his back traveled straight overthe pass. That was guide enough. It wasonly ten miles to the fourth bench now,thence six to summit. Soon he shouldpass a narrow cross-canyon holding a deadglacier. He walked a mile. He could notforget that feeder—any moment the grindof gravel under foot might tell he was onit and lost. The pain confused every-thing. At last he must have passed thegorge. Two miles beyond, as the glacierturned west, had been Five Mile Camp,from which a mass of blue ice, crumpledas it rounded a spur, was visible five milesoff in clear weather. But it was impos-sible to keep these facts clear; to forget,or to remember them.

Suddenly the ice seemed to slope thewrong way. Who had been silly enoughto twist around the glacier?—as if theycould fool Fritz. He was dizzy; heseemed to be at two places on the ice atonce. How long had he been standingstill? What was a space of time, anyway?His eyes only throbbed and burned a little.The pain sunk through them, like acid intoclay, till even his finger tips were weakand sickened. He found himself pickingat the edges of the yellow paper Amy hadpointed to at Tyono. He took a step, andfell forward into snow. The rain hissedinto it softly. No snow should lie hereat this season. So he was on some otherfeeder—lost. His wet clothes clung tohim like armor; chained and chafed him.

The Return of Dutch Fritz

Anon the ice cracked, as it were solid oak,settling in resistless passage to the sea;and a deafening roar arose as ton on toncrashed down from the fringing crags.

The paper blew away, opened on aridge of snow, and the rain pinioned anddissolved its half-English, half-Chinookscrawls. It told of a cache stolen bywhite men, of Stickwan’s vain attempts tonet salmon before the run, to find sheep; ofeating tschotsh, of failing to snare rabbits,there being no snow; of slow starvation.It prayed Fritz to return to her to showher his own cache. Her father, it said,declared Fritz had lied in giving herpromises—vaguely and tenderly referredto—to return; told of Billum, who was go-ing to Tyono and would take this letter toFritz; said it surely would find him, asHonegetta, the shaman, had foretold that awhite man would soon cross the glacier in“big wind, sit down, mebbe die.” It wassigned—“Nannasnitnaw.”

He crawled on angrily, digging a zig-zag path in the slush with feet and hands;pausing as the mists boiled with the crashof snow slides, for an awful danger seemedto lie across his path. The roaring grewincessant; he stopped. A lot of wet,lumpy snow shot rustling past, buryinghis hands; and the same instant every-thing crunched softly away under his bodyand he began to fall . . . . Sfft!Sfft! shot the snow overhead, forming aroof, burying him alive. The crash ofice grew dimmer, the air thicker, hotter,stifling.

Never would he have waked, he wassure, had it not been for the voices. Theylaughed, taunted, cheered him in feature-less words to fight a way out. Angrilyhe started to struggle up the pit walls.At last, strengthened by the warmth, adead weight of snow gave way on hisshoulders, and he pushed out on the openglacier. It was lighter and colder, andthe sheets of scud vanished luminously.He felt stronger. How far to the fourthbench? And if there were no more cre-vasses! Suddenly the fog broke into silverwraiths, and out flashed a palace withdomes and minarets and glassy walls,stained with the pure light of sunset. Hewould make it-summit, valley, cache,Nannasnitnaw. But the flush perished,

5 3 9

the ice melted into the sky and a bluefissure cut its face from top to bottom—a stream of water foreshortened into anazure column ascending to heaven. Buthad his eyes been opened or closed? Hemust stroke his lids to tell; pull them apartto see.

Next he lay on his back in a veryhigh place after measureless eras of tre-mendous effort. He had struggled on withone hand outstretched and tingling withwarmth; with one voice, the others havingvanished—a woman’s voice, in which theroar of wind and avalanche and splashof water spoke, urging him on in Chinook.Days of fight lay between him and thesummit. The girl, grub, gold, life—werethey worth it? No. Better the snow pit.The numbness was stupefying. Let it be.All was lost.

But his heart burned with pain, fordeath lures kindly until the moment ofyielding. At once the scud again waspeopled with voices taunting him, a coward,for craving sleep. One of them camenear and enunciated slowly, “Think ofmarrying that Stickwan’s daughter, andhavin’ yer friends to grub and see her lickthe platters clean with her tongue.”That was Silas’ voice! “She’ll be takingthe moose guts out of your kids’ mouthsand feedin’ them to the dogs.” That wasAmy—curse him! “Great for a count withroyal blood. What? with a castle and astarving mother by the Rhine.” Thatwas Marks, who understood him—turnedtraitor. “Squawmens’ lives with starvingcold and dirty fish grease makes ’em softand crazy, so I’d put my foot on one likea snake!”—Silas again.

Fiends! He’d escaped them all. Fritzplunged madly forward. The snow slopeddown again—why was that? But thecircling voices followed, the air was full ofthem, many were strange—jeering howsquawmen made their klootches packenormous burdens, bending them double,killing them; of men who had forsakenfriends and homes for dreams of gold,and had gone mad in stark valleys, jabber-ing over a handful of pebbles. The tor-ture was endless. Great spaces of timewere passing. He was being led fast;suddenly over clear ice, jerked crookedlyby one arm. Once he slipped down afissure. Yes, the ice led down with the

5 40 The Re tu rn o f Dutch Fr i t z

wind. A snow-bridge crushed throughand wedged him to the armpits. He gotout—but how? Whither was he beingled? Why? By whom?

Then the truth of all dawned on him.The spirits vanished a moment, but onlyshe who led him returned. He could seeher through the scud. Fear deepenedinto horror. All the voices had coalescedinto the gray giant being, the woman whospoke so kindly in Chinook. She, thathideous thing, she—why she was theglacier demon—had cheered him to fightfor life that she, the stark creature wholured men to death on the glacier, mightpitch him also into a crevasse.

He struck at her frenziedly, but sheshrieked and seemed to curdle away in themist. Fritz fell forward, and upon gravel.In the single, vivid second that comes be-fore consciousness is lost, he felt that hewas lying upon a moraine, and that mistand water roared out of a great rock fissureoverhead, as he knew happened in the eyeof the pass, where the moisture-laden hur-ricanes from the sea are lost, like waterbursting from a fire hose, in the dry sun-light of the great interior. Then all hischords of feeling sloughed off, and he laylike one dead.

“She’s a vicked one, dot glaysher, Eh?”exclaimed Fritz, sitting upright, “Got,how it is dark! Ain’t she mornings yet?I hear dot fire crackle a long time, but!doan’ see her.”

The tall Indian girl who stood feedingthe flames buried her face in her handsand sobbed. She had listened for hoursto his ravings. Down the valley roaredthe glacier stream, a trail of silver specks;through the spruces and into a lake blaz-ing like an eye of the boundless forest.Snowdrops and primroses shivered in thewind on their high ledge.

Fritz had suddenly torn off the raggedshawl she had thrown about him, gropedwith his hands like a man in the dark;then shouted to the sky.

She clasped him in her arms, and retoldfor the tenth time the story of starvation,faith, and love told in her letter; how herfather had found Fritz’s cache; how,fearing the prophecy of Honegetta, shehad started for Tyono to save him; haddragged him out of the crevasse, incitedhim to fight for his life, pulled him up the

fourth bench—until he had turned andstruck her.

“What for you strike me?” she cried.“Me save you life—you kill me.”

Fritz lifelessly turned his heavy featurestoward the valley. “Leettle girl, I doan’want to kill you” (he moaned). “I loosemineself a piece. Wait a momen’.”

At last an idea seemed to seize her, andshe crept toward him. She leaned overand stared full into his face.

“Leettle girl,” he went on childishly,“I doan for de gold come back. I fool dewise guys at Tyono. I come make you meSansisco Klootch.”

“Fritz!” shouted Nannasnitnaw. Shepointed to a mountain valley opening westfrom the lake. “Looksey! you see big-stone, tenas* stleam. Me fader find hiyugold. Hiyu big nugget find ’em. Youcome see?”

“Doan’ fool me, doan’ lie to me, leettlegirl. Dere is no gold in dese mountain.When Got de world make, he damn carefulput no gold where Fritz catch ’em.”

“No lie, no lie!” she cried, pointing tothe valley. “You see? You see?”

Fritz’s head had sunk on his chest. Hedid not raise it; he did not speak.

“Flitz!” she shouted, still staring intohis face, her fingers tightening on hisragged shirt.

“Flitz!”The girl understood. He was stone

blind.“You find me out, hein?” laughed

Fritz. “I blind go. When I see no fire, I trynot to tell you de snow blind me for always.I guess you no want to be SansiscoKlootch for white man dot cannot see.”

She wrapped him in her arms.“You not lie to me! You not lie to me

about the gold?” he cried. “Bimeby youfader show me, eh? You not lie to me?”

It was hours before she had calmed him.Then, taking Fritz tenderly by the hand,she led him down the torrent bed, andthrough the forest to her father Stick-wan’s camp by the lake, where lean wolf-dogs basked with naked children, andgutted salmon dried in the sun.

A year later, old Silas, sitting on thestoop of the Tyono hotel, saw Charles Amywalk from the cottonwoods below the

* Little.

The Return of Dutch Fr i tz 5 4 1

glacier. A skinny Indian with a big back-pack followed Amy.

“Ain’t you millionaires got to trainin’your vavlets to wearin’ liveries?” calledout Silas.

“Corner in broadcloth, up to Dutch-town,” answered Amy, unpacking his“vavlet” on the stoop. “I gave Algeron apair o’ mackinaws, and he got so stuck onthe coats-of-arms on the buttons, he cutsthem off for a necklace for his Klootch.”

Algeron was directed to go into thehotel, and in a moment was seen throughthe window, eating with both hands, andstuffing pickles into his pocket, as if thiswere the first and last meal he’d ever get.

Dutchtown, with its board walks,trombone-wracked dance halls, and twofeet of mud in Main Street, had sprung upon Nannasnitnaw’s Creek, in the valleyopening west from the lake. The coastwas on fire about it. Amy had made hispile there, and was quitting the countryfor good. He set a row of selected nuggetsin chamois bags on the steps, drew a longenvelope from a pile of A. C. Co. drafts,and handed it to Silas.

“This for Fritz’s mother?” asked theold man. “Fifty thousand more, eh?—She’ll be buyin’ back her estates andcrowns yet. Will he go back to her?”

Amy stroked his beard and shook hishead. “He’s squawman to Nannasnit-naw, you’ve heard. When a white manhitches up to a savage, there’s a lot ofthings about the life he was raised in heforgets. There’s more of the savage na-tur’ in man ’an they get credit for.”

“An’ he’s blind as a mole, ain’t he?”said Silas appreciatively.

“Blind as a mole.”Both pioneers looked to the bay, where

a golden haze was creeping up the moun-tains, and the evening light stained theirsnowy crags a lustrous rose. It was veryquiet. The roar of the glacier streamsounded like the beat of surf.

“Ought to see Fritz,” ruminated Amy.“Lives with the Siwash outfit up on hisdiscovery claim, and sits cross-leggedeatin’ tschosh root, while they, take turnssluicin’ for him. They carry him off tohunt when snow comes.king.”

He’s happy as a

“Happier’n any count, I guess,” echoedSilas. “Mebbe happier’n he’s ever beenin his life.”

“Mebbe,” said Amy.“He certainly done the trick, makin’

that strike blind as he was. I’d like toown the claims Fritz owns,” observedSilas. “So I was wrong about the fortune-teller, and that cash, too. And thatSiberian slave-driver’s pipe was right. Hejust was foolin’ us all along, and we calledhim nutty!

“The old sausage never was such a foolas we made him out,” went on Silas.“We’d oughter been able to size up a manbetter’n we did him. Ain’t you got someconscience about the way we used tohorse him? I have.”

“Mebbe I have, too,” said Amy. “Butit’s a hard land, and many a man has morecomin’ to him up in this country ‘an hedeserves.”

“An’ gold has a mighty softenin’ influ-ence on the human heart, eh?” said Silasafter a pause, catching Amy’s eye andsmiling shrewdly.