"By golly! Dat's beautiful!" he declared. "Now you' fix for sure. No matter how col' she come, your li'l toes goin' be warm, you don' froze your nose—"
"You're good and true—and—" Rouletta faltered, then added, fervently,
"I shall always thank God for knowing you."
Now above all things Doret dreaded his "sister's" serious moods or any expression of her gratitude; he waved her words aside with an airy gesture and began in a hearty tone:
"We don't stop dis place no longer. To-morrow we start for Dyea. Wat you t'ink of dat, eh? Pretty queeck you be home." When his hearer displayed no great animation at the prospect he exclaimed, in perplexity: "You fonny gal. Ain't you care?"
"I have no home," she gravely told him.
"But your people—dey goin' be glad for see you?"
"I have no people, either. You see, we lived a queer life, father and I. I was all he had, outside of poor Danny Royal, and he—was all I had. Home was where we happened to be. He sold everything to come North; he cut all ties and risked everything on a single throw. That was his way, our way—all or nothing. I've been thinking lately; I've asked myself what he would have wished me to do, and—I've made up my mind."
"So?" 'Poleon was puzzled.
"I'm not going 'outside.' I'm going to Dawson. 'Be a thoroughbred. Don't weaken.' That's what he always said. Sam Kirby followed the frontier and he made his money there. Well, I'm his girl, his blood is in me. I'm going through."
'Poleon's brow was furrowed in deep thought; it cleared slowly. "Dawson she's bad city, but you're brave li'l gal and—badness is here," he tapped his chest with a huge forefinger. "So long de heart she's pure, not'in' goin' touch you." He nodded in better agreement with Rouletta's decision. "Mebbe so you're right. For me, I'm glad, very glad, for I t'ink my bird is goin' spread her wing' an' fly away south lak all de res', but now—bien! I'm satisfy! We go to Dawson."