faces.

"He has got to be told," said Dick, with a shake of the head. "You tell him, Pete. I couldn't do it."

"Me neither. Here you, Waseche Bill, you tell him."

"I cain't do it, boys. Honest I cain't. You tell him." Thus each man urged his neighbour, and in the midst of their half-spoken sentences the door opened and the boy entered. An awkward hush fell upon them—the fifty rough, fur-clad men whose bearded faces stared at him from the gloom of the long, dark room—and the one small boy who stared back with undisguised interest. The silence became painful, and at length someone spoke:

"So you're Sam Morgan's boy?" the man asked, advancing and offering a great hairy hand. The boy took the hand and bore the pain of the mighty grip without flinching.

"Yes, sir," he answered. "Do you know him—my father?"

"Sure I know him! Do I know Sam Morgan? Well, I just guess I do know him! There ain't a man 'tween here an' Dawson don't know Sam Morgan!" Others crowded about and welcomed the boy with rude kindness.

"Is my father here, in Anvik?" the boy asked of the man called Pete.

"No, kid, he ain't here—in Anvik. Say, Waseche, where is Sam Morgan at? Do you know?" Thus Pete shifted the responsibility. But Waseche Bill, a long, lank Kentuckian, was equal to the occasion.

"Why, yes, Sam Mo'gan, he's up above, somewhe's," with a sweep of his arm in the direction of the headwaters of the great river.

"That's right," others added, "Sam Morgan's up above."

"When can I go to him?" asked the boy, and again the men looked at each other helplessly.

"The's a bunch of us goin' up Hesitation way in a day or two, an' yo' c'n go 'long of us. Sam's cabin's at Hesitation. But yo' cain't go 'long in that rig," he added, eyeing the threadbare overcoat and ragged stockings.

"Oh! That's all right. I'll buy some warm clothes. I've got money. Eight dollars!" exclaimed the boy, proudly producing a worn leather pocketbook in which were a few tightly wadded bills.

Eight dollars! In Alaska! And yet not a man laughed. Waseche Bill placed his hand on the boy's shoulder and smiled:

"Well, now, sonny, that's a right sma't lot o' money, back in the States, but it don't stack up very high in Alaska." He noticed the look of disappointment with which the boy eyed his hoard, and hastened to proceed: "But don't yo' fret none. It's lucky yo' chanced 'long heah, 'cause I happen to be owin' Sam Mo'gan a hund'ed, an' it's right handy fo' to pay it now." Hardly had he ceased speaking when Dick Colton stepped forward:

"I owe Sam fifty." "An' me!" "An' me, too!" "An' me, I'd most forgot it!" The others had taken their cue, and it seemed to the bewildered boy as though these men owed his father all the money in the world.

"But I don't understand," he gasped. "Is father rich? Has he made a strike, at last?"

"No, son," answered Dick, "your father is not rich—in gold. He never made a strike. In fact, he is counted the most unlucky man in the North—in some ways." He turned his head. "But just the same, boy, there's not a man in Alaska but owes Sam Morgan more than he can pay."

"Tell me about him," cried the boy, his eyes alight. "Did my father do some great thing?" The silence was broken by old Scotty McCollough:

"Na', laddie, Sam Morgan never done no great thing. He di' na' ha' to. He was great!" And by the emphasis which the bluff old Scotchman placed upon the word "was," of a sudden the boy knew!

"My father is dead!" he moaned, and buried his face in his hands, while the men looked on in silent sympathy. Only for a moment did the boy remain so, then the little shoulders stiffened under the thin overcoat, the hands dropped to his side and clenched, and the square jaw set firm—as Sam Morgan's had set, that day he faced big "British Kronk" on the snow-packed street of Candle. As the boy faced the men of the North, he spoke, and his voice trembled.

"I will stay in Alaska," he said, "and dig for the gold my father never found. I think he would have liked it so." Suddenly the low-ceilinged room rang with cheers and the boy was lifted bodily onto the shoulders of the big men.

"You bet, he'd liked it!" yelled the man called Pete.

"Yo'r Sam Mo'gan's boy all right—jest solid grit clean through. It looks f'om heah like Sam's luck has tu'ned at last!" cried Waseche Bill.

Two days later, when he hit the long trail for Hesitation, in company with Waseche Bill, Dick Colton, and Scotty McCollough, Sam Morgan's boy was clad from parka hood to mukluks in the most approved gear of the Northland.

He learned quickly the tricks of the trail, the harnessing and handling of dogs, the choosing of camps, and the hasty preparation of meals; and in the evenings, as they sat close about the camp fire, he never tired of listening as the men told him of his father. His heart swelled with pride, and in his breast grew a great longing to follow in the footsteps of this man, and to hold the place in the affections of the big, rough men of the White Country that his father had held.

All along the trail men grasped him by the hand. He made new friends at every camp. And so it was that Sam Morgan's boy became the pride of the Yukon.

At Hesitation he moved into his father's cabin, and went to work for Scotty McCollough, who was the storekeeper. Many a man went out of his way to trade with Scotty that he might boast in other camps that he knew Sam Morgan's boy.

One day Waseche Bill took him out on the Ragged Falls trail where, at the foot of the precipice, his father lay buried. The two stood long at the side of the snow-covered mound, at the head of which stood a little wooden cross with its simple legend burned deep by the men who were his friends:

SAM MORGAN
ALASKA

The man laid a kindly hand on the boy's shoulder:

"Notice, son, it don't say Hesitation, nor Circle, nor Dawson—but just Alaska. It takes a mighty big man to fill that there description in this country," and the man brushed away a tear of which he was not ashamed.

CHAPTER II

THE TEN BOW STAMPEDE

With the passing of the winter Connie found himself the proud possessor of a three-dog team. Shortly after the trip to "Sam Morgan's Stumble," Waseche Bill disappeared into the north on a solitary prospecting trip. Before he left he presented Connie with old Boris, a Hudson Bay dog famed in his day as the wisest trail dog on the Yukon, and in spite of his years, a lead dog whose sagacity was almost uncanny.

"He's been a great dog, son, but he's gettin' too old fo' the long trails. I aimed to keep him 'til he died, but I know yo'll use him right. Just keep old Boris in the lead and he'll learn yo' mo' trail knowledge than I could—or any otheh man." Thus Waseche Bill took leave of the boy and swung out into the trail with a younger dog in the lead. Old Boris stood with drooping tail beside his new master, and as the sled disappeared over the bank and swept out onto the ice of the river, as if in realization that for him the trail days were over, he threw back his shaggy head and with his muzzle pointing toward the aurora-shot sky, sent a long, bell-like howl of protest quavering into the chill air.

Later, a passing prospector presented Connie with Mutt, a slow, heavily built dog, good-natured and clumsy, who knew only how to throw his