Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum, tum, tum-tum,
To shear the Golden Fleece,


Charles did it, but he did it so discreetly that none of his party,
least of all the sailor, ever learned of it. He saw two great open
barges being filled up with men, and, on inquiry, learned that
these were grubless ones being rounded up and sent down the Yukon
by the Committee of Safety. The barges were to be towed by the
last little steamboat in Dawson, and the hope was that Fort Yukon,
where lay the stranded steamboats, would be gained before the river
froze. At any rate, no matter what happened to them, Dawson would
be relieved of their grub-consuming presence. So to the Committee
of Safety Charles went, privily to drop a flea in its ear
concerning Tarwater's grubless, moneyless, and aged condition.
Tarwater was one of the last gathered in, and when Young Liverpool
returned to the boat, from the bank he saw the barges in a run of
cake-ice, disappearing around the bend below Moose-hide Mountain.

Running in cake-ice all the way, and several times escaping jams in
the Yukon Flats, the barges made their hundreds of miles of
progress farther into the north and froze up cheek by jowl with the
grub-fleet. Here, inside the Arctic Circle, Old Tarwater settled
down to pass the long winter. Several hours' work a day, chopping
firewood for the steamboat companies, sufficed to keep him in food.
For the rest of the time there was nothing to do but hibernate in
his log cabin.

Warmth, rest, and plenty to eat, cured his hacking cough and put
him in as good physical condition as was possible for his advanced