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Having disposed of Arizona Jack and watched him out of sight, the population turned from the bank and went to work on its claims–all except Curly Jim, who ran the one faro layout in all the Northland and who speculated in prospect-holes on the sides. Two things happened that day that were momentous. In the late morning Marcus O’Brien struck it. He washed out a dollar, a dollar and a half, and two dollars, from three successive pans. He had found the streak. Curly Jim looked into the hole, washed a few pans himself, and offered O’Brien ten thousand dollars for all rights–five thousand in dust, and, in lieu of the other five thousand, a half interest in his faro layout. O’Brien refused the offer. He was there to make money out of the earth, he declared with heat, and not out of his fellow- men. And anyway, he didn’t like faro. Besides, he appraised his strike at a whole lot more than ten thousand.

The second event of moment occurred in the afternoon, when Siskiyou Pearly ran his boat into the bank and tied up. He was fresh from the Outside, and had in his possession a four-months-old newspaper. Furthermore, he had half a dozen barrels of whisky, all consigned to Curly Jim. The men of Red Cow quit work. They sampled the whisky– at a dollar a drink, weighed out on Curly’s scales; and they discussed the news. And all would have been well, had not Curly Jim conceived a nefarious scheme, which was, namely, first to get Marcus O’Brien drunk, and next, to buy his mine from him.

The first half of the scheme worked beautifully. It began in the early evening, and by nine o’clock O’Brien had reached the singing stage. He clung with one arm around Curly Jim’s neck, and even essayed the late lamented Ferguson’s song about the little birds. He considered he was quite safe in this, what of the fact that the only man in camp with artistic feelings was even then speeding down the Yukon on the breast of a five-mile current.

But the second half of the scheme failed to connect. No matter how much whisky was poured down his neck, O’Brien could not be brought to realize that it was his bounden and friendly duty to sell his claim. He hesitated, it is true, and trembled now and again on the verge of giving in. Inside his muddled head, however, he was chuckling to himself. He was up to Curly Jim’s game, and liked the hands that were being dealt him. The whisky was good. It came out of one special barrel, and was about a dozen times better than that in the other five barrels.

Siskiyou Pearly was dispensing drinks in the bar-room to the remainder of the population of Red Cow, while O’Brien and Curly had out their business orgy in the kitchen. But there was nothing small about O’Brien. He went into the bar-room and returned with Mucluc Charley and Percy Leclaire.

“Business ‘sociates of mine, business ‘sociates,” he announced, with a broad wink to them and a guileless grin to Curly. “Always trust their judgment, always trust ’em. They’re all right. Give ’em some fire-water, Curly, an’ le’s talk it over.”

This was ringing in; but Curly Jim, making a swift revaluation of the claim, and remembering that the last pan he washed had turned out seven dollars, decided that it was worth the extra whisky, even if it was selling in the other room at a dollar a drink.

“I’m not likely to consider,” O’Brien was hiccoughing to his two friends in the course of explaining to them the question at issue. “Who? Me?–sell for ten thousand dollars! No indeed. I’ll dig the gold myself, an’ then I’m goin’ down to God’s country–Southern California–that’s the place for me to end my declinin’ days–an’ then I’ll start . . . as I said before, then I’ll start . . . what did I say I was goin’ to start?”