WHERE THE PATH LED By daylight next morning every man and most of the women among the new arrivals had disappeared into the hills--the women in spite of the by-laws of Lee's Creek, which discriminated against their sex.

When a stampede starts it does not end with the location of one stream-bed, nor of two; every foot of valley ground for miles on every hand is pre-empted, in the hope that more gold will be found; each creek forms a new district, and its discoverers adopt laws to suit their whims.

The women, therefore, hastened to participate in the discovery of new territory and in the shaping of its government, leaving but few of either sex to guard the tents and piles of provisions standing by the river-bank.

In two days they began to return, and straggled in at intervals for a week thereafter, for many had gone far.
And now began a new era for Flambeau--an era of industry such as the frontier town had never known.

The woods behind rang with the resounding discords of axes and saws and crashing timber, and new cabins appeared on every hand, rising in a day.