A TRIP TO FORT YUKONThe following morning more wood was cut and more gravel shoveled from the hole. And so, day in and day out through the long winter, the two continued their mining. Every day they washed a test pan, melting ice in a kettle in the fireplace; and, as Matthew had predicted, the deeper they went the richer the pay streak showed.
Shaft after shaft was burned down to bed rock that winter. It gave them work, wonderfully profitable work, and a welcome break in the monotony of the long dark winter.
Ignatz came down for powder, and Jake brought up the subject of the sacred charm. He finally offered to trade for the fetish. But the Indian would not even consider it. No—they would go back to the bow and arrow—they would starve, before they would part with the thing that keeps men
