Page:To Alaska for Gold.djvu/222

200 distance of the camp, a shriek rent the air, telling that Guardley's punishment had already begun.

The boys had expected their uncle to come back by Tuesday as told; but in the afternoon one of the miners, working down Mosquito Hollow, brought word from Dawson City that Mr. Portney could not get his lumber for two or three days, and might be absent the remainder of the week in consequence. So there was nothing to do but to keep on working at the claims with the hand pans, and this Randy and Earl did, Fred helping them as far as he was able. The boy who had been so ill-treated and half starved was growing stronger rapidly, and he showed a willingness to do even the most disagreeable things which was as astonishing as it was gratifying.

Friday found the trio working up along a little split in the rocks on the right bank of the gulch. The split was not over two feet wide by twelve feet long, and it was filled with gravel and muck, with here and there the nest of a field mouse among the tundra. Earl had suggested clearing out the split, and he had gone in first to loosen the gravel with his pick. About three loads of soil had been removed and carted down to the gulch stream, and now Earl found the balance of the split blocked by a huge rock.

"Doesn't seem to amount to much," he said, throwing down his tools to mop the perspiration from his brow.