a passenger. He's an official of the Alaska Commercial and just
has to get in. He's bid up to six hundred to go with me in our
boat. Now the passage is yours. You sell it to him, poke the six
hundred into your jeans, and pull South for California while the
goin's good. You can be in Dyea in two days, and in California in
a week more. What d'ye say?"

Tarwater coughed and shivered for a space, ere he could get freedom
of breath for speech.

"Son," he said, "I just want to tell you one thing. I drove my
four yoke of oxen across the Plains in Forty-nine and lost nary a
one. I drove them plumb to Californy, and I freighted with them
afterward out of Sutter's Fort to American Bar. Now I'm going to
Klondike. Ain't nothing can stop me, ain't nothing at all. I'm
going to ride that boat, with you at the steering sweep, clean to
Klondike, and I'm going to shake three hundred thousand out of the
moss-roots. That being so, it's contrary to reason and common
sense for me to sell out my passage. But I thank you kindly, son,
I thank you kindly."

The young sailor shot out his hand impulsively and gripped the old
man's.

"By God, dad!" he cried. "You're sure going to go then. You're
the real stuff." He looked with undisguised contempt across the
sleepers to where Charles Crayton snored in his red beard. "They
don't seem to make your kind any more, dad."

Into the north they fought their way, although old-timers, coming