Roy Norton

“ All day long we tugged together, dogs and master. So long had Malicula followed those other sled tracks, traced out like a faint road in the snow, and frozen into little rough lines, that he took the road instinctively. For hours at a stretch, I did not look at the land around me, save to remember landmarks, looking backward and stamping on my memory the details that I must remember for my return in case the shroud of snow obliterated the trail. ”

“ The trail was obliterated for the first time in that long journey, but we had the landmarks in view, faintly visible through the snow dust, and toward the range we headed, fighting our way foot by foot, and caring nothing for guiding tracks. The fear of surprising the Hatchet was lost in the face of that more imminent fear of dying, out there in a blizzard, We stiffly fought our way up a slope, and dropped down into a valley, where I presumed a stream ran in summer, and as suddenly as we descended its slopes the wind died. ”

“ I stumbled forward and slipped my feet from the thongs, and jerked off my mittens, and thrust my hands into that heated water poured forth from the fiery heart of the earth—or was it hell?—and caught up and let fall through them that lavish stream of gold.
It was there! Gold in greater abundance than I have ever seen! Gold that dripped from my wet fingers, and splashed back into the clear, warm water. Gold in such abundance that under my eyes lay a fortune. A stream almost paved with it, as if all the red gold of the world had been collected there to await my coming! ”