"They"re jumpable at midnight."
French Charlie invited the Boy to go along, but neither he nor the Colonel felt enthusiastic.
"They"re no good, those claims, except to sell to some sucker, and we"re not in that business _yet_, sah."
They had just done twenty miles in slush and mire, and their hearts were heavier than their heels. No, they would go to bed while the others did the jumpin", and next day they would fill Keith"s wood-bin.
"So if work does turn up we won"t have to worry about usin" up his firin"." In the chill of the next evening they were cording the results of the day"s chopping, when Maudie, in fur coat, skirts to the knee, and high rubber boots, appeared behind Keith"s shack. Without deigning to notice the Boy, "Ain"t seen you all day," says she to the Colonel.
"Busy," he replied, scarcely looking up.
"Did you do any jumpin" last night?"
"No."
"_That"s_ all right."
She seated herself with satisfaction on a log. She looked at the Boy impudently, as much as to say, "When that blot on the landscape is removed, I"ll tell you something." The Boy had not the smallest intention of removing the blot.
Grudgingly he admitted to himself that, away from the unsavory atmosphere of the Gold Nugget, there was nothing in Maudie positively offensive. At this moment, with her shrewd little face peering pertly out from her parki-hood, she looked more than ever like an audacious child, or like some strange, new little Arctic animal with a whimsical human air.
"Look here, Colonel," she said presently, either despairing of getting rid of the Boy or ceasing to care about it: "you got to get a wiggle on to-morrow."
"What for?"
She looked round, first over one shoulder, then over the other. "Well, it"s on the quiet."
The Kentuckian nodded. But she winked her blue eyes suspiciously at the Boy.
"Oh, _he"s_ all right."
"Well, you been down to Little Minook, ain"t you?"
"Yes."
"And you seen how the pay pinches out above No. 10?"
"Yes."
"Well, now, if it ain"t above No. 10, where is it?" No answer. "Where does it _go_?" she repeated severely, like a schoolmarm to a cla.s.s of backward boys.
"That"s what everybody"d like to know."
"Then let "em ask Pitcairn."
"What"s Pitcairn say?"
She got up briskly, moved to another log almost at the Colonel"s feet, and sat looking at him a moment as if making up her mind about something serious. The Colonel stood, fists at his sides, arrested by that name Pitcairn.
"You know Pitcairn"s the best all-round man we got here," she a.s.serted rather than asked.
The Colonel nodded.
"He"s an Idaho miner, Pitcairn is!"
"I know."
"Well, he"s been out lookin" at the place where the gold gives out on Little Minook. There"s a pup just there above No. 10--remember?"
"Perfectly."
"And above the pup, on the right, there"s a bed of gravel."
"Couldn"t see much of that for the snow."
"Well, sir, that bed o" gravel"s an old channel."
"No!"
She nodded. "Pitcairn"s sunk a prospect, and found colours in his first pan."
"Oh, colours!"
"But the deeper he went, the better prospects he got." She stood up now, close to the Colonel. The Boy stopped work and leaned on the wood pile, listening. "Pitcairn told Charlie and me (on the strict q. t.) that the gold channel crossed the divide at No. 10, and the only gold on Little Minookust what spilt down on those six claims as the gold went crossin" the gulch. The real placer is that old channel above the pup, and boys"--in her enthusiasm she even included the Colonel"s objectionable pardner--"boys, it"s rich as blazes!"
"I wonder----" drawled the Colonel, recovering a little from his first thrill.
"I wouldn"t advise you to waste much time wonderin"," she said with fire. "What I"m tellin" you is scientific. Pitcairn is straight as a string. You won"t get any hymns out o" Pitcairn, but you"ll get fair and square. His news is worth a lot. If you got any natchral gumption anywhere about you, you can have a claim worth anything from ten to fifty thousand dollars this time to-morrow."
"Well, well! Good Lord! Hey, Boy, what we goin" to do?"
"Well, you don"t want to get excited," admonished the queer little Arctic animal, jumping up suddenly; "but you can bunk early and get a four a.m. wiggle on. Charlie and me"ll meet you on the Minookl. Ta-ta!"
tad she whisked away as suddenly as a chipmunk.
They couldn"t sleep. Some minutes before the time named they were quietly leaving Keith"s shack. Out on the trail there were two or three men already disappearing towards Little Minook here was Maudie, all by herself, sprinting along like a good fellow, on the thin surface of the last night"s frost. She walked in native water-boots, but her snow-shoes stuck out above the small pack neatly lashed on her straight little shoulders. They waited for her.
She came up very brisk and businesslike. To their good-mornings she only nodded in a funny, preoccupied way, never opening her lips.
"Charlie gone on?" inquired the Colonel presently.
She shook her head. "Knocked out."
"Been fightin"?"
"No; ran a race to Hunter."
"To jump that claim?"
She nodded.