Hugh Payne dodged the uncivil war back east to lead an early Western drift. Finding an old prospector, he found his queue to life. Riding from Montana into the wilds of primitive Alaska, Hugh dodged the hands of greedy men. Stranded without horses and facing a spring breakup of winter ice on the river, he rafted toward nowhere he knew until he smelled smoke. Amelia Madewell, abandoned by her husband to winter alone in a prospectors shack without so much as gunpowder, horses, or the knowledge of the cruel, biting Alaska winters she faced had managed to survive. "Mr. Payne, what are you going to do with all that gold?" she asked.