"But, what will he think when you tell him you have not made a strike?"
Brent laughed: "He will be the first to see that I have made a strike, dear—the richest strike in all the North."
"And you didn't tell me!" cried the girl, "Tell me about it, now! Was it on the Coppermine?"
"Yes, it was on the Coppermine. I made the
great strike, one evening in the moonlight—when the dearest girl in the world told me she loved me."
Snowdrift raised her wondrous dark eyes to his: "Isn't it wonderful to love as we love?" she whispered, "To be all the world to each other? I do not care if we never make a strike. All I want is to be with you always. And if we do not make a strike we will live in our tepee and snare rabbits, and hunt, and be happy, always."
Brent covered the upturned face with kisses: "I guess we can manage something better than a tepee," he smiled. "I've got more than half of Reeves' dust left, and I've been thinking the matter over. The fact is, I don't think much of that Coppermine country for gold. I reckon we'll get a house and settle down in Dawson for a while, and I'll take the job Reeves offered me, and work till I get him paid off, and Camillo Bill, and enough ahead for a grub-stake, and then we'll see what's to be done. We'll have lots of good times, too. There's the Reeves' and—and——"
Brent paused, and the girl smiled, "What's the matter? Can't you think of any more?"
"Well, to tell the truth, I don't know any others who—that is, married folks, our kind, you know. The men I knew best are all single men. But, lots of people have come in with the dredge companies. The Reeves will know them."
"There is that girl you called Kitty," suggested Snowdrift.