"He isn't old," said Miss Andrews, carelessly.
"What's the idea?"
"I don't know that I have any idea. Why?"
"Humph! I'm interested—naturally."
"You needn't be. It's every one for himself up here, and you don't seem to be getting ahead very fast."
"I see. McGill's due to be a millionaire, and I'm down and out," Barclay sneered. "Well, we're neither of us children. If you can land him, more power to you."
"I wouldn't stand in your way," said Miss Andrews, coldly, "and I don't intend that you shall stand in mine."
"Is that the only way you look at it?" Barclay wore an ugly frown that seemed genuine. She met it with a mere shrug, causing him to exclaim, hotly, "If you don't care any more than that, I won't interfere." He turned and walked away.
Those were wonderful days for McGill. Instead of hurrying back to his work he loitered. With a splendid disregard of convention he followed the girl about hourly and was too drunk with her smiles to hear the comment his actions evoked. He had moments of despair when he saw himself as a great, awkward bear, more aptly designed to frighten than to woo a woman, but these periods of depression gave way to the keenest delight at some word of encouragement from Alice Andrews. He did not fully realize that he had asked her to marry him until it was all over, but she seemed to understand so fully what was in his heart that she had drawn it from him before he really knew what he was saying. And then the joy of her acceptance! It stunned him. When he had finally torn himself away from her side he went out and stood bareheaded under the northern lights to let it sink in. There were no words in his vocabulary, no thoughts in his mind, capable of expressing the marvel of it. The gorgeous colors that leaped from horizon to zenith were no more glorious than the riot that flamed within his soul. She loved him, Dan McGill, and she was a white woman! When he thought how beautiful and young she was his heart overflowed with a gentle tenderness which rivaled that of any mother.
Still in a dream, he related the miracle to the steamboat captain, who took the announcement in silence. This old man had wintered inside the circle and knew something of the woman-hunger that comes to strong men in solitude. He was observant, moreover, and had seen good girls made bad by the fires of the frontier, as well as bad women made good by marriage.