Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/221

Rh nugget. I allowed I'd bury it with him. The next day I dug a grave an' I put Hans Anderson in it, with the nugget still clutched in his hand. An' then, jest as I give a last look, a shaft of sunlight struck down an' lit up the gold till it shined, an' glittered—" the man paused, shuddered, and moistened his lips with his tongue. "'The gold's got you! You're a fool!' I yells to myself out loud. 'Gold's gold! An' here's more of it in one lump than you ever seen or ever will see. Gold ain't nothin' but rock, or whatever it is. It can't do him no good, nor you no harm. An' it's as much yourn, now, as it was his'n when he took it from the Injun!' An' I reaches down and tears the chunk from his fingers, an' throws in the dirt, an' jumps into my canoe an' paddles for the big river. I sewed the nugget in the linin' of my coat. At Five Finger I caught the June Altroff, an'—an'—it's got me—like Hans Anderson said it would."

The scalded man died. And that same night occurred the fire that razed the Miners' and Marines' Hospital to the ground. By dint of much work and no little heroism the patients were all removed. In the official records the cause of the