In due time, the three were duly established in the East. Dangerous Dan, in the course of his daily visits to Lou from a lodging he had taken close at hand, guided her thoughts so craftily that, with no suspicion of having been influenced, the heart-broken woman decided that she should get a divorce. Dan had chosen a location in a State where desertion was a sufficient cause. Lou brought suit, and the issue was expedited in the courts. She believed that thus she gave to her husband an opportunity to marry the woman with whom he had become infatuated, and thus, too, an opportunity to restore in some degree his self-respect.... She could not guess that, owing to the treachery of the man on whose advice she relied, her husband had no knowledge whatsoever of these proceedings. The newspapers, with their formal advertisements to the defendant in the action instituted in the courts, were never posted to the address of the ranch-owner.... Dan McGrew saw to that.
Eventually, there came a decree nisi. In due time, the divorce was made absolute. Throughout this interval of delay, the man demonstrated the firmness of his purpose by the patience with which he waited for the attainment of his ends.
It was not until a year after her flight from home that Lou became the wife of Dangerous Dan McGrew.... Why should she not give herself to him who had so befriended her?
The late dawn of the morning after the wedding came on clear, with a soft wind blowing from the south. Under its gentleness, the sun was able to thaw the surface of the snow. Then the wind swung to the north. Within an hour, the crust on the snow, as the Arctic air blew over it, was strong enough to support a horse. And Dan McGrew and many another took advantage of the fact. There were a few meagerly fed horses in the town, remnants from the discontinued Lodestar Mine, which had failed to pay a profit, after elaborate installation of equipment. They knew that at the first change of the weather their mounts would become worse than useless. In the meantime, however, there was a luxury in this form of travel that appealed. And there were hangers-on in the town, too poor for a grub-stake, who for a pittance would run on foot with the train, and afterward take back the horses to the village, when a softer snow should make them a hindrance rather than a help.
Nell used the voice of wifely authority:
"Why, the idea! Of course I shall go too!" She was all eagerness. For years she had lived with those who were informed with the spirit of the frontiers. Her husband, thus far in his battling with the Northland, had been successful. He had found claims of value. Some of them he had sold; some of them he had worked. From most of them he had won a deserved profit. So, when the news of the strike on Forgotten Creek came—even though it was his wedding-day—Jack Reeves was all agog with anxiety to be off to this region whither fortune beckoned.... And Nell would not be left behind. She would follow her husband where fate led. She would not be denied.
Thus it came about that the bridal pair were among the crowd that surged in the village street before the Dyea Hotel on the morning after their wedding. Jack had a team of dogs, the best within hundreds of miles. They were strong enough to make play of hauling the long sled, laden with provisions, on which Nell was seated with ease, well-wrapped in furs, and sheltered beneath a drapery of white—the skin of a polar bear, which Jack had brought back with him as a trophy of experiences beneath the Arctic night.
There were in the throng men who had no dogs. They carried on their backs the small allowance of bacon, beans, flour, tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco. The adventurers were of all sorts. Some went well supplied. Others joined in the stampede recklessly. They might starve, or freeze, out there in the mountains. But they were caught and drawn on by the lust for riches. Somewhere out there in the cold and the distance gold was lying. In the sands of the creeks, in the ledges of the mountains, were the golden flakes, the riches for which each and every one craved....
