"Oh, it's not Sergeant Scarlett! It is the Mr. Travers who looked after us so civilly aboard the Skagway boat."
Sarah's eyebrow's went up further still. "Indeed, miss! He's very smart in his dress, yet—however, I suppose everything goes in a country where no one minds the clocks."
Meanwhile, with the assistance of Ikey, Maclane, having covered the funereal sled with the Stars and Stripes loaned by Gumboot Annie, drew it across to poor Walter's own side of the dividing line, that his mortal remains might rest in their native soil.
When he came to seek Evelyn, to consult her about the last rites, she met him with a strange request, to the effect that first he should unite her with all despatch and secrecy to one Mr. Horatio Travers, whom she then and there presented to him.
"My dear young lady!" The minister stared at her. "Isn't this decision very sudden? Forgive my interference, but you being alone up here, and so young——"
"I'm twenty-two," Evelyn assured him, "and that's middle-aged for a New York girl."
In spite of the bravado of her manner, her tone so wholly lacked all bridal joyousness that Maclane was impelled to draw her aside and ask: "Is this act of your own free will?"
"Heavens, yes!" she asserted, confidently. "No one on earth could make me do anything I didn't choose to."
"Nevertheless," the minister demurred, "let me entreat you to defer so important a step till you can consult your father."
"It is my father's desire, expressed with an emphasis that makes it almost a command," averred Evelyn, solemnly. "And conveyed to me at the price of that poor lad's life."