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Rh Armed to the teeth, we were still shivering in the cold darkness well on into the night, and at some distance from the dying embers, when suddenly--we nearly screamed--there was a sound of a voice. It was a man's voice; he was angry; he was cursing. A flame shot up beneath the trees. We saw Gallup on his knees blowing up the hemlock coals. He had landed, pulled his canoe on to the bank, and come up to within a few yards of where we stood without our hearing the faintest sound. He said no word. He cooked himself no food. He just made a huge fire, spread his blanket beside the comforting blaze, curled up, and fell asleep. We soon followed his example. Probably he had enjoyed a square meal with the Indians, then sauntered home to bed.... Next day we reached Rainy Lake City, paid him off, and saw him push off upstream in his Maine canoe without having uttered a single word. He just counted the dollar bills and vanished.

Rainy Lake City was a few acres roughly cleared from the primæval forest, yet with avenues cut through the dense trees to indicate streets where tramcars were to run at some future date. River, lake and forest combined to make an enchanting scene. There were perhaps a hundred men there. There was gold, but there was no gold-dust, no shining pans to sift the precious sand; in a word, no placer-mining. It was all quartz; machinery to crush the quartz had to be dragged in over the ice in the winter. Capital was essential, large lumps of capital. A word of inquiry in New York could have told me this. I felt rather guilty, but very happy. Paxton and R.M. were philosophical. No word of blame escaped their lips. They had the right to curse me, whereas both played the part of Balaam. Even at the time I thought this odd. Neither of them seemed to care a straw. "We'll stake a claim," said R.M. at intervals. Perhaps both were so pleased to have arrived safely that they neither grumbled nor abused me. The truth was that, like myself, though for rather different reasons, both of them were relieved to be "away from home." The engineer, Rh