In five minutes buck had made fourteen hundred dollars for Thornton and his friends.
The money made it possible for them to travel east, where they wanted to look for a lost gold mine. Men said that this mine had more gold than any other mine in the north. Many had looked for it,and some had died looking for it . The only man who knew where it was were now dead.
Thornton, Pete and Hans, with buck and six other dogs, started off to the east in the spring. They travelled up the Stewart river and crossed the Mackenzie mountains.