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THE WINDS OF CHANCE

By REX BEACH

Author of "THE SILVER HORDE" "THE SPOILERS" "THE IRON TRAIL" Etc.

CHAPTER I

With an ostentatious flourish Mr. "Lucky" Broad placed a crisp ten-dollar bill in an eager palm outstretched across his folding-table.

"The gentleman wins and the gambler loses!" Mr. Broad proclaimed to the world. "The eye is quicker than the hand, and the dealer's moans is music to the stranger's ear." With practised touch he rearranged the three worn walnut-shells which constituted his stock in trade. Beneath one of them he deftly concealed a pellet about the size of a five-grain allopathic pill. It was the erratic behavior of this tiny ball, its mysterious comings and goings, that had summoned Mr. Broad's audience and now held its observant interest. This audience, composed of roughly dressed men, listened attentively to the seductive monologue which accompanied the dealer's deft manipulations, and was greatly entertained thereby. "Three tiny tepees in a row and a little black medicine-man inside." The speaker's voice was high-pitched and it carried like a "thirtythirty." "You see him walk in, you open the door, and—you double your money. Awfully simple! Simpully awful! What? As I live! The gentleman wins ten more—ten silver-tongued song-birds, ten messengers of mirth—the price of a hard day's toil. Take it, sir, and may it make a better and a stronger man of you. Times are good and I spend my money free. I made it packin' grub to Linderman, four bits a pound, but—easy come, easy go. Now then, who's next? You've seen me work. I couldn't baffle a sore-eyed Siwash with snow-glasses."

Lucky Broad's three-legged table stood among some stumps beside the muddy roadway which did service as the main street of Dyea and along which flowed an irregular stream of pedestrians; incidental to his practised manipulation of the polished walnut-shells he maintained an unceasing chatter of the sort above set down. Now his voice was loud and challenging, now it was apologetic, always it stimulated curiosity. One moment he was jubilant and gay, again he was contrite and querulous. Occasionally he burst forth into plaintive self-denunciations.

Fixing a hypnotic gaze upon a bland, blue-eyed bystander who had just joined the charmed circle, he murmured, invitingly: "Better try your luck, Olaf. It's Danish dice—three chances to win and one to lose."

The object of his address shook his head. "Aye ant Danish, Aye ban
Norvegen," said he.

"Danish dice or Norwegian poker, they're both the same. I'll deal you a free hand and it won't cost you a cent. Fix your baby blues on the little ball and watch me close. Don't let me deceive you. Now then, which hut hides the grain?"

Noting a half-dozen pairs of eyes upon him, the Norseman became conscious that he was a center of interest. He grinned half-heartedly and, after a brief hesitation, thrust forth a clumsy paw, lifted a shell, and exposed the object of general curiosity.

"You guessed it!" There was commendation, there was pleased surprise, in Mr. Broad's tone. "You can't fool a foreigner, can you, boys? My, my! Ain't it lucky for me that we played for fun? But you got to give me another chance, Lars; I'll fool you yet. In walks the little pill once more, I make the magic pass, and you follow me attentively, knowing in your heart of hearts that I'm a slick un. Now then, shoot, Kid; you can't miss me!"

The onlookers stirred with interest; with eager fingers the artless Norwegian fumbled in his pocket. At the last moment, however, he thought better of his impulse, grunted once, then turned his back to the table and walked away.

"Missed him!" murmured the dealer, with no display of feeling; then to the group around him he announced, shamelessly: "You got to lead those birds; they fly fast."

One of Mr. Broad's boosters, he who had twice won for the Norseman's benefit, carelessly returned his winnings. "Sure!" he agreed. "They got a head like a turtle, them Swedes."

Mr. Broad carefully smoothed out the two bills and reverently laid them to rest in his bank-roll. "Yes, and they got bony mouths. You got to set your hook or it won't hold."

"Slow pickin's," yawned an honest miner with a pack upon his back. Attracted by the group at the table, he had dropped out of the procession in the street and had paused long enough to win a bet or two. Now he straightened himself and stretched his arms. "These Michael Strogoffs is hep to the old stuff, Lucky. I'm thinking of joining the big rush. They say this Klondike is some rich."

Inasmuch as there were no strangers in sight at the moment, the proprietor of the deadfall gave up barking; he daintily folded and tore in half a cigarette paper, out of which he fashioned a thin smoke for himself. It was that well-earned moment of repose, that welcome recess from the day's toil. Mr. Broad inhaled deeply, then he turned his eyes upon the former speaker.

"You've been thinking again, have you?" He frowned darkly. With a note of warning in his voice he declared: "You ain't strong enough for such heavy work, Kid. That's why I've got you packing hay."

The object of this sarcasm hitched his shoulders and the movement showed that his burden was indeed no more than a cunning counterfeit, a bundle of hay rolled inside a tarpaulin.

"Oh, I got a head and I've been doing some heavy thinking with it," the Kid retorted. "This here Dawson is going to be a good town. I'm getting readied up to join the parade."

"Are you, now?" the shell-man mocked. "I s'pose you got it all framed with the Canucks to let you through? I s'pose the chief of police knows you and likes you, eh? You and him is cousins, or something?"

"Coppers is all alike; there's always a way to square 'em—"

"Lay off that 'squaring' stuff," cautioned a renegade crook, disguised by a suit of mackinaws and a week's growth of beard into the likeness of a stampeder. "A thousand bucks and a ton of grub, that's what the sign says, and that's what it means. They wouldn't let you over the Line with nine hundred and ninety-nine fifty."

"Right!" agreed a third capper. "It's a closed season on broken stiffs. You can't monkey with the Mounted Police. When they put over an edict it lays there till it freezes. They'll make you show your 'openers' at the Boundary. Gee! If I had 'em I wouldn't bother to go 'inside.' What's a guy want with more than a thousand dollars and a ton of grub, anyhow?"

"All the same, I'm about set to hit the trail," stubbornly maintained the man with the alfalfa pack. "I ain't broke. When you boys get to Dawson, just ask for Kid Bridges' saloon and I'll open wine. These woollys can have their mines; me for a hootch-mill on Main Street."

Lucky addressed his bevy of boosters. "Have I nursed a serpent in my breast, or has the Kid met a banker's son? Gimme room, boys. I'm going to shuffle the shells for him and let him double his money. Keep your eye on the magic pea, Mr. Bridges. Three tiny tepees in a row—" There was a general laugh as Broad began to shift the walnut-shells, but Kid Bridges retorted, contemptuously:

"That's the trouble with all you wiseacres. You get a dollar ahead and you fall for another man's game. I never knew a faro-dealer that wouldn't shoot craps. No, I haven't met no banker's son and I ain't likely to in this place. These pilgrims have sewed their money in their underclothes, and they sleep with their eyes open. Seems like they'd go blind, but they don't. These ain't Rubes, Lucky; they're city folks. They've seen three-ringed circuses and three-shell games, and all that farmer stuff. They've been 'gypped,' and it's an old story to 'em."

"You're dead right," Broad acknowledged. "That's why it's good. D'you know the best town in America for the shells? Little old New York. If the cops would let me set up at the corner of Broad and Wall, I'd own the Stock Exchange in a week. Madison and State is another good stand; so's Market and Kearney, or Pioneer Square, down by the totem pole. New York, Chicago, 'Frisco, Seattle, they're all hick towns. For every city guy that's been stung by a bee there's a hundred that still thinks honey comes from a fruit. This rush is just starting, and the bigger it grows the better we'll do. Say, Kid, if you mush over to Tagish with that load of timothy on your spine, the police will put you on the wood-pile for the winter."

While Mr. Lucky Broad and his business associates were thus busied in discussing the latest decree of the Northwest Mounted Police, other townsmen of theirs were similarly engaged. Details of this proclamation—the most arbitrary of any, hitherto—had just arrived from the International Boundary, and had caused a halt, an eddy, in the stream of gold-seekers which flowed inland toward the Chilkoot Pass. A human tide was setting northward from the States, a tide which swelled and quickened daily as the news of George Carmack's discovery spread across the world, but at Healy & Wilson's log-store, where the notice above referred to had been posted, the stream slowed. A crowd of new-comers from the barges and steamers in the roadstead had assembled there, and now gave voice to hoarse indignation and bitter resentment. Late arrivals from Skagway, farther down the coast, brought word of similar scenes at that point and a similar feeling of dismay; they reported a similar increase in the general excitement, too. There, as here, a tent city was springing up, the wooded hills were awakening to echoes of unaccustomed life, a thrill and a stir were running through the wilderness and the odor of spruce fires was growing heavier with every ship that came.

Pierce Phillips emerged from the trading-post and, drawn by the force of gravitation, joined the largest and the most excited group of Argonauts. He was still somewhat dazed by his perusal of that Police edict; the blow to his hopes was still too stunning, his disappointment was still too keen, to permit of clear thought.

"A ton of provisions and a thousand dollars!" he repeated, blankly. Why, that was absurd, out of all possible reason! It would bar the way to fully half this rushing army; it would turn men back at the very threshold of the golden North. Nevertheless, there stood the notice in black and white, a clear and unequivocal warning from the Canadian authorities, evidently designed to forestall famine on the foodless Yukon. From the loud arguments round about him Phillips gathered that opinion on the justice of the measure was about evenly divided; those fortunate men who had come well provided commended it heartily, those less fortunate fellows who were sailing close-hauled were equally noisy in their denunciation of it. The latter could see in this precautionary ruling nothing except the exercise of a tyrannical power aimed at their ruin, and in consequence they voiced threats, and promises of violence the which Phillips put down as mere resentful mouthings of no actual significance. As for himself, he had never possessed anything like a thousand dollars at one time, therefore the problem of acquiring such a prodigious sum in the immediate future presented appalling difficulties. He had come north to get rich, only to find that it was necessary to be rich in order to get north. A fine situation, truly! A ton of provisions would cost at least five hundred dollars and the expense of transporting it across summer swamps and tundras, then up and over that mysterious and forbidding Chilkoot of which he had heard so much, would bring the total capital required up to impossible proportions. The prospect was indeed dismaying. Phillips had been ashore less than an hour, but already he had gained some faint idea of the country that lay ahead of him; already he had noted the almost absolute lack of transportation; already he had learned the price of packers, and as a result he found himself at an impasse.

One thousand dollars and two hundred pounds! It was enough to dash high hopes. And yet, strangely enough, Phillips was not discouraged. He was rather surprised at his own rebound after the first shock; his reasonless optimism vaguely amazed him, until, in contemplating the matter, he discovered that his thoughts were running somewhat after this fashion:

"They told me I couldn't make it; they said something was sure to happen. Well, it has. I'm up against it—hard. Most fellows would quit and go home, but I sha'n't. I'm going to win out, somehow, for this is the real thing. This is Life, Adventure. It will be wonderful to look back and say: 'I did it. Nothing stopped me. I landed at Dyea with one hundred and thirty-five dollars, but look at me now!'"

Thoughts such as these were in his mind, and their resolute nature must have been reflected in his face, for a voice aroused him from his meditations.

"It don't seem to faze you much, partner. I s'pose you came heeled?"
Phillips looked up and into a sullen, angry face.

"It nearly kills me," he smiled. "I'm the worst-heeled man in the crowd."

"Well, it's a darned outrage. A ton of grub? Why, have you seen the trail? Take a look; it's a man-killer, and the rate is forty cents a pound to Linderman. It'll go to fifty now—maybe a dollar—and there aren't enough packers to handle half the stuff."

"Things are worse at Skagway," another man volunteered. "I came up yesterday, and they're losing a hundred head of horses a day—bogging 'em down and breaking their legs. You can walk on dead carcasses from the Porcupine to the Summit."

A third stranger, evidently one of the well-provided few, laughed carelessly. "If you boys can't stand the strain you'd better stay where you are," said he. "Grub's sky-high in Dawson, and mighty short. I knew what I was up against, so I came prepared. Better go home and try it next summer."

The first speaker, he of the sullen visage, turned his back, muttering, resentfully: "Another wise guy! They make me sick! I've a notion to go through anyhow."

"Don't try that," cautioned the man from Skagway. "If you got past the Police they'd follow you to hell but what they'd bring you back. They ain't like our police."

Still meditating his plight, Pierce Phillips edged out of the crowd and walked slowly down the street. It was not a street at all, except by courtesy, for it was no more than an open waterfront faced by a few log buildings and a meandering line of new white tents. Tents were going up everywhere and all of them bore painful evidence of their newness. So did the clothes of their owners for that matter—men's garments still bore their price-tags. The beach was crowded with piles of merchandise over which there was much wrangling, barges plying regularly back and forth from the anchored ships added hourly to the confusion. As outfits were dumped upon the sand their owners assembled them and bore them away to their temporary camp sites. In this occupation every man faced his own responsibilities single-handed, for there were neither drays nor carts nor vehicles of any sort.

As Phillips looked on at the disorder along the water's edge, as he stared up the fir-flanked Dyea valley, whither a steady stream of traffic flowed, he began to feel a fretful eagerness to join in it, to be up and going. 'Way yonder through those hills towered the Chilkoot, and beyond that was the mighty river rushing toward Dawson City, toward Life and Adventure, for that was what the gold-fields signified to Phillips. Yes, Life! Adventure! He had set out to seek them, to taste the flavor of the world, and there it lay—his world, at least—just out of reach. A fierce impatience, a hot resentment at that senseless restriction which chained him in his tracks, ran through the boy. What right had any one to stop him here at the very door, when just inside great things were happening? Past that white-and-purple barrier which he could see against the sky a new land lay, a radiant land of promise, of mystery, and of fascination; Pierce vowed that he would not, could not, wait. Fortunes would reward the first arrivals; how, then, could he permit these other men to precede him? The world was a good place—it would not let a person starve.

To the young and the foot-free Adventure lurks just over the hill; Life opens from the crest of the very next divide. It matters not that we never quite come up with either, that we never quite attain the summit whence our promises are realized; the ever-present expectation, the eager straining forward, is the breath of youth. It was that breath which Phillips now felt in his nostrils. It was pungent, salty.

He noted a group of people gathered about some center of attraction whence issued a high-pitched intonation.

"Oh, look at the cute little pea! Klondike croquet, the packer's pastime. Who'll risk a dollar to win a dollar? It's a healthy sport. It's good for young and old—a cheeild can understand it. Three Eskimo igloos and an educated pill!"

"A shell-game!" Pierce Phillips halted in his tracks and stared incredulously, then he smiled. "A shell-game, running wide open on the main street of the town!" This WAS the frontier, the very edge of things. With an odd sense of unreality he felt the world turn back ten years. He had seen shell-games at circuses and fairgrounds when he was much younger, but he supposed they had long since been abandoned in favor of more ingenious and less discreditable methods of robbery. Evidently, however, there were some gulls left, for this device appeared to be well patronized. Still doubting the evidence of his ears, he joined the group.

"The gentleman wins and the gambler loses!" droned the dealer as he paid a bet. "Now then, we're off for another journey. Who'll ride with me this time?"

Phillips was amazed that any one could be so simple-minded as to squander his money upon such a notoriously unprofitable form of entertainment. Nevertheless, men were playing, and they did not seem to suspect that the persons whom the dealer occasionally paid were his confederates.

The operator maintained an incessant monologue. At the moment of Pierce's arrival he was directing it at an ox-eyed individual, evidently selected to be the next victim. The fellow was stupid, nevertheless he exercised some caution at first. He won a few dollars, then he lost a few, but, alas! the gambling fever mounted in him and greed finally overcame his hesitation. With an eager gesture he chose a shell and Phillips felt a glow of satisfaction at the realization that the man had once more guessed aright. Drawing forth a wallet, the fellow laid it on the table.

"I'll bet the lump," he cried.

The dealer hesitated. "How much you got in that alligator valise?"

"Two hundred dollars."

"Two hundred berries on one bush!" The proprietor of the game was incredulous. "Boys, he aims to leave me cleaner than a snow-bird." Seizing the walnut-shell between his thumb and forefinger, he turned it over, but instead of exposing the elusive pellet he managed, by an almost imperceptible forward movement, to roll it out from under its hiding-place and to conceal it between his third and fourth fingers. The stranger was surprised, dumfounded, at sight of the empty shell. He looked on open-mouthed while his wallet was looted of its contents.

"Every now and then I win a little one," the gambler announced as he politely returned the bill-case to its owner. He lifted another shell, and by some sleight-of-hand managed to replace the pellet upon the table, then gravely flipped a five-dollar gold piece to one of his boosters.

Phillips's eyes were quick; from where he stood he had detected the maneuver and it left him hot with indignation. He felt impelled to tell the victim how he had been robbed, but thought better of the impulse and assured himself that this was none of his affair. For perhaps ten minutes he looked on while the sheep-shearing proceeded.

After a time there came a lull and the dealer raised his voice to entice new patrons. Meanwhile, he paused to roll a cigarette the size of a wheat straw. While thus engaged there sounded the hoarse blast of a steamer's whistle in the offing and he turned his head. Profiting by this instant of inattention a hand reached across the table and lifted one of the walnut-shells. There was nothing under it.

"Five bucks on this one!" A soiled bill was placed beside one of the two remaining shells, the empty one.

Thus far Phillips had followed the pea unerringly, therefore he was amazed at the new better's mistake.

The dealer turned back to his layout and winked at the bystanders, saying, "Brother, I'll bet you ten more that you've made a bad bet." His offer was accepted. Simultaneously Phillips was seized with an intense desire to beat this sharper at his own game; impulsively he laid a protecting palm over the shell beneath which he knew the little sphere to lie.

"I'll pick this one," he heard himself say.

"Better let me deal you a new hand," the gambler suggested.

"Nothing of the sort," a man at Phillips' shoulder broke in. "Hang on to that shell, kid. You're right and I'm going down for the size of his bankroll." The speaker was evidently a miner, for he carried a bulky pack upon his shoulders. He placed a heavy palm over the back of Phillips' hand, then extracted from the depths of his overalls a fat roll of paper money.

The size of this wager, together with the determination of its owner, appeared briefly to nonplus the dealer. He voiced a protest, but the miner forcibly overbore it:

"Say, I eat up this shell stuff!" he declared. "It's my meat, and I've trimmed every tinhorn that ever came to my town. There's three hundred dollars; you cover it, and you cover this boy's bet, too." The fellow winked reassuringly at Phillips. "You heard him say the sky was his limit, didn't you? Well, let's see how high the sky is in these parts!"

There was a movement in the crowd, whereupon the speaker cried, warningly: "Boosters, stand back! Don't try to give us the elbow, or I'll close up this game!" To Pierce he murmured, confidentially: "We've got him right. Don't let anybody edge you out." He put more weight upon Phillips' hand and forced the young man closer to the table.

Pierce had no intention of surrendering his place, and now the satisfaction of triumphing over these crooks excited him. He continued to cover the walnut-shell while with his free hand he drew his own money from his pocket. He saw that the owner of the game was suffering extreme discomfort at this checkmate, and he enjoyed the situation.

"I watched you trim that farmer a few minutes ago," Phillips' companion chuckled. "Now I'm going to make you put up or shut up. There's my three hundred. I can use it when it grows to six."

"How much are you betting?" the dealer inquired of Phillips.

Pierce had intended merely to risk a dollar or two, but now there came to him a thrilling thought. That notice at Healy & Wilson's store flashed into his mind. "One thousand dollars and a ton of food," the sign had read. Well, why not bet and bet heavy? he asked himself. Here was a chance to double his scanty capital at the expense of a rogue. To beat a barefaced chater at his own game surely could not be considered cheating; in this instance it was mere retribution.

He had no time to analyze the right or the wrong of his reasoning—at best the question would bear debate. Granting that it wasn't exactly honest, what did such nice considerations weigh when balanced against the stern necessities of this hour? A stranger endeavored to shove him away from the table and this clinched his decision. He'd make them play fair. With a sweep of his free arm. Phillips sent the fellow staggering back and then placed his entire roll of bills on the table in front of the dealer.

"There's mine," he said, shortly. "One hundred and thirty-five dollars.
I don't have to count it, for I know it by heart."

"Business appears to be picking up," murmured the proprietor of the game.

Phillips' neighbor continued to hold the boy's hand in a vicelike grip.
Now he leaned forward, saying:

"Look here! Are you going to cover our coin or am I going to smoke you up?"

"The groans of the gambler is sweet music in their ears!" The dealer shrugged reluctantly and counted out four hundred and thirty-five dollars, which he separated into two piles.

A certain shame at his action swept over Phillips when he felt his companion's grasp relax and heard him say, "Turn her over, kid."

This was diamond cut diamond, of course; nevertheless, it was a low-down trick and—

Pierce Phillips started, he examined the interior of the walnut-shell in bewilderment, for he had lifted it only to find it quite empty.

"Every now and then I win a little one," the dealer intoned, gravely pocketing his winnings. "It only goes to show you that the hand—"

"Damnation!" exploded the man at Phillips' side. "Trimmed for three hundred, or I'm a goat!"

As Pierce walked away some one fell into step with him; it was the sullen, black-browed individual he had seen at the trading-post.

"So they took you for a hundred and thirty-five, eh? You must be rolling in coin," the man observed.

Even yet Pierce was more than a little dazed. "Do you know," said he,
"I was sure I had the right shell."

"Why, of course you had the right one." The stranger laughed shortly. "They laid it up for you on purpose, then Kid Bridges worked a shift when he held your hand. You can't beat 'em."

Pierce halted. "Was he—was THAT fellow with the pack a booster?"

"Certainly. They're all boosters. The Kid carries enough hay on his back to feed a team. It's his bed. I've been here a week and I know 'em." The speaker stared in surprise at Phillips, who had broken into a hearty laugh. "Look here! A little hundred and thirty-five must be chicken feed to you. If you've got any more to toss away, toss it in my direction."

"That's what makes it so funny. You see, I haven't any more. That was my last dollar. Well, it serves me right. Now I can start from scratch and win on my own speed."

The dark-browed man studied Phillips curiously. "You're certain'y game," he announced. "I s'pose now you'll be wanting to sell some of your outfit. That's why I've been hanging around that game. I've picked up quite a bit of stuff that way, but I'm still short a few things and I'll buy—"

"I haven't a pound of grub. I came up second-class."

"Huh! Then you'll go back steerage."

"Oh no, I won't! I'm going on to Dawson." There was a momentary silence. "You say you've been here a week? Put me up for the night—until I get a job. Will you?"

The black-eyed man hesitated, then he grinned. "You've got your nerve, but—I'm blamed if I don't like it," said he. "My brother Jim is cooking supper now. Suppose we go over to the tent and ask him."

CHAPTER II

The headwaters of the Dyea River spring from a giant's punch-bowl. Three miles above timber-line the valley bottom widens out into a flinty field strewn with boulders which in ages past have lost their footing on the steep hills forming the sides of the cup. Between these boulders a thin carpet of moss is spread, but the slopes themselves are quite naked; they are seamed and cracked and weather-beaten, their surfaces are split and shattered from the play of the elements. High up toward the crest of one of them rides a glacier—a pallid, weeping sentinel which stands guard for the great ice-caps beyond. Winter snows, summer fogs and rains have washed the hillsides clean; they are leached out and they present a lifeless, forbidding front to travelers. In many places the granite fragments which still encumber them lie piled one above another in such titanic chaos as to discourage man's puny efforts to climb over them. Nevertheless, men have done so, and by the thousands, by the tens of thousands. On this particular morning an unending procession of human beings was straining up and over and through the confusion. They lifted themselves by foot and by hand; where the slope was steepest they crept on all-fours. They formed an unbroken, threadlike stream extending from timberline to crest, each individual being dwarfed to microscopic proportions by the size of his surroundings. They flowed across the floor of the valley, then slowly, very slowly, they flowed up its almost perpendicular wall. Now they were lost to sight; again they reappeared clambering over glacier scars or toiling up steep, rocky slides; finally they emerged away up under the arch of the sky.

Looking down from the roof of the pass itself, the scene was doubly impressive, for the wooded valley lay outstretched clear to the sea, and out of it came that long, wavering line of ants. They did, indeed, appear to be ants, those men, as they dragged themselves across the meadow and up the ascent; they resembled nothing more than a file of those industrious insects creeping across the bottom and up the sides of a bath-tub, and the likeness was borne out by the fact that all carried burdens. That was in truth the marvel of the scene, for every man on the Chilkoot was bent beneath a back-breaking load.

Three miles down the gulch, where the upward march of the forests had been halted, there, among scattered outposts of scrubby spruce and wind-twisted willow, stood a village, a sprawling, formless aggregation of flimsy tents and green logs known as Sheep Camp. Although it was a temporary, makeshift town, already it bulked big in the minds of men from Maine to California, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, for it was the last outpost of civilization, and beyond it lay a land of mystery. Sheep Camp had become famous by reason of the fact that it was linked with the name of that Via Dolorosa, that summit of despair, the Chilkoot. Already it had come to stand for the weak man's ultimate mile-post, the end of many journeys.

The approach from the sea was easy, if twelve miles of boulder and bog, of swamp and nigger-head, of root and stump, can be called easy under the best of circumstances; but easy it was as compared with what lay beyond and above it. Nevertheless, many Argonauts had never penetrated even thus far, and of those who had, a considerable proportion had turned back at the giant pit three miles above. One look at the towering barrier had been enough for them. The Chilkoot was more than a mountain, more than an obstacle of nature; it was a Presence, a tremendous and a terrifying Personality which overshadowed the minds of men and could neither be ignored at the time nor forgotten later. No wonder, then, that Sheep Camp, which was a part of the Chilkoot, represented, a sort of acid test; no wonder that those who had moved their outfits thus far were of the breed the Northland loves—the stout of heart and of body.

Provisions were cached at frequent intervals all the way up from the sea, but in the open meadow beneath the thousand-foot wall an immense supply depot had sprung up. This pocket in the hills had become an open-air commissary, stocked with every sort of provender and gear. There were acres of sacks and bundles, of boxes and bales, of lumber and hardware and perishable stuffs, and all day long men came and went in relays. One relay staggered up and out of the canon and dropped its packs, another picked up the bundles and ascended skyward. Pound by pound, ton by ton, this vast equipment of supplies went forward, but slowly, oh, so slowly! And at such effort! It was indeed fit work for ants, for it arrived nowhere and it never ended. Antlike, these burden-bearers possessed but one idea—to fetch and to carry; they traveled back and forth along the trail until they wore it into a bottomless bog, until every rock, every tree, every landmark along it became hatefully familiar and their eyes grew sick from seeing them.

The character of then—labor and its monotony, even in this short time, had changed the men's characters—they had become pack-animals and they deported themselves as such. All labor-saving devices, all mechanical aids, all short cuts to comfort and to accomplishment, had been left behind; here was the wilderness, primitive, hostile, merciless. Every foot they moved, every ounce they carried, was at the cost of muscular exertion. It was only natural that they should take on the color of their surroundings.

Money lost its value a mile above Sheep Camp said became a thing of weight, a thing to carry. The standard of value was the pound, and men thought in hundredweights or in tons. Yet there was no relief, no respite, for famine stalked in the Yukon and the Northwest Mounted were on guard, hence these unfortunates were chained to their grub-piles as galley-slaves are shackled to their benches.

Toe to heel, like peons rising from the bowels of a mine, they bent their backs and strained up that riven rock wall. Blasphemy and pain, high hopes and black despair, hearts overtaxed and eyes blind with fatigue, that was what the Chilkoot stood for. Permeating the entire atmosphere of the place, so that even the dullest could feel it, was a feverish haste, an apprehensive demand for speed, more speed, to keep ahead of the pressing thousands coming on behind.

Pierce Phillips breasted the last rise to the Summit, slipped his pack-straps, and flung himself full length upon the ground. His lungs felt as if they were bursting, the blood surged through his veins until he rocked, his body streamed with sweat, and his legs were as heavy as if molded from solid iron. He was pumped out, winded; nevertheless, he felt his strength return with magic swiftness, for he possessed that marvelous recuperative power of youth, and, like some fabled warrior, new strength flowed into him from the earth. Round about him other men were sprawled; some lay like corpses, others were propped against their packs, a few stirred and sighed like the sorely wounded after a charge. Those who had lain longest rose, took up their burdens, and went groaning over the sky-line and out of sight. Every moment new faces, purple with effort or white with exhaustion, rose out of the depths—all were bitten deep with lines of physical suffering. On buckled knees their owners lurched forward to find resting-places; in their eyes burned a sullen rage; in their mouths were foul curses at this Devil's Stairway. There were striplings and graybeards in the crowd, strong men and weak men, but here at the Summit all were alike in one particular—they lacked breath for anything except oaths.

Here, too, as in the valley beneath, was another great depot of provision piles. Near where Phillips had thrown himself down there was one man whose bearing was in marked contrast to that of the others. He sat astride a bulging canvas bag in a leather harness, and in spite of the fact that the mark of a tump-line showed beneath his cap he betrayed no signs of fatigue. He was not at all exhausted, and from the interest he displayed it seemed that he had chosen this spot as a vantage-point from which to study the upcoming file rather than as a place in which to rest. This he did with a quick, appreciative eye and with a genial smile. In face, in dress, in manner, he was different. For one thing, he was of foreign birth, and yet he appeared to be more a piece of the country than any man Pierce had seen. His clothes were of a pattern common among the native packers, but he wore them with a free, unconscious grace all his own. From the peak of his Canadian toque there depended a tassel which bobbed when he talked; his boots were of Indian make, and they were soft and light and waterproof; a sash of several colors was knotted about his waist. But it was not alone his dress which challenged the eye—there was something in this fellow's easy, open bearing which arrested attention. His dark skin had been deepened by windburn, his well-set, well-shaped head bore a countenance both eager and intelligent, a countenance that fairly glowed with confidence and good humor.

Oddly enough, he sang as he sat upon his pack. High up on this hillside, amid blasphemous complaints, he hummed a gay little song:

"Chante, rossignol, chante!
Toi qui a le coeur gai!
Tu as le coeur a rire
Mai j'l'ai-t-a pleurer,"

ran his chanson.

Phillips had seen the fellow several times, and the circumstances of their first encounter had been sufficiently unusual to impress themselves upon his mind. Pierce had been resting here, at this very spot, when the Canuck had come up into sight, bearing a hundred-pound pack without apparent effort. Two flour-sacks upon a man's back was a rare sight on the roof of the Chilkoot. There were not many who could master that slope with more than one, but this fellow had borne his burden without apparent effort; and what was even more remarkable, what had caused Pierce Phillips to open his eyes in genuine astonishment, was the fact that the man climbed with a pipe in his teeth and smoked it with relish. On that occasion the Frenchman had not stopped at the crest to breathe, but had merely paused long enough to admire the scene outspread beneath him; then he had swung onward. Of all the sights young Phillips had beheld in this new land, the vision of that huge, unhurried Canadian, smoking, had impressed him deepest. It had awakened his keen envy, too, for Pierce was beginning to glory in his own strength. A few days later they had rested near each other on the Long Lake portage. That is, Phillips had rested; the Canadian, it seemed, had a habit of pausing when and where the fancy struck him. His reason for stopping there had been the antics of a peculiarly fearless and impertinent "camp-robber." With a crust of bread he had tolled the bird almost within his reach and was accepting its scolding with intense amusement. Having both teased and made friends with the creature, he finally gave it the crust and resumed his journey.

This was a land where brawn was glorified; the tales told oftenest around the stoves at Sheep Camp had to do with feats of strength or endurance, they were stories of mighty men and mighty packs, of long marches and of grim staying powers. Already the names of certain "old-timers" like Dinsmore and McDonald and Peterson and Stick Jim had become famous because of some conspicuous exploit. Dinsmore, according to the legend, had once lugged a hundred and sixty pounds to the Summit; McDonald had bent a horseshoe in his hands; Peterson had lifted the stem-piece out of a poling-boat lodged on the rocks below White Horse; Stick Jim had run down a moose and killed it with his knife.

From what Phillips had seen of this French Canadian it was plain that he, too, was an "old-timer," one of that Jovian band of supermen who had dared the dark interior and robbed the bars of Forty Mile in the hard days before the El Dorado discovery. Since this was their first opportunity of exchanging speech, Phillips ventured to address the man.

"I thought I had a load this morning, but I'd hate to swap packs with you," he said.

The Frenchman flashed him a smile which exposed a row of teeth snow-white against his tan. "Ho! You're stronger as me. I see you plenty tams biffore."

This was indeed agreeable praise, and Pierce showed his pleasure. "Oh no!" he modestly protested. "I'm just getting broken in."

"Look out you don' broke your back," warned the other. "Dis Chilkoot she's bad bizness. She's keel a lot of dese sof' fellers. Dey get seeck in de back. You hear 'bout it?"

"Spinal meningitis. It's partly from exposure."

"Dat's him! Don' never carry too moch; don' be in soch hurry."

Phillips laughed at this caution. "Why, we have to hurry," said he. "New people are coming all the time and they'll beat us in if we don't look out."

His comrade shrugged. "Mebbe so; but s'posin' dey do. Wat's de hodds?
She's beeg countree; dere's plenty claims."

"Are there, really?" Phillips' eyes brightened. "You're an old-timer; you've been 'inside.' Do you mean there's plenty of gold for all of us?"

"Dere ain't 'nuff gold in all de worl' for some people."

"I mean is Dawson as rich as they say it is?"

"Um—m! I don' know."

"Didn't you get in on the strike?"

"I hear 'bout 'im, but I'm t'inkin' 'bout oder t'ings."

Phillips regarded the speaker curiously. "That's funny. What business are you in?"

"My bizness? Jus' livin'." The Canadian's eyes twinkled. "You don' savvy, eh—? Wal, dat's biccause you're lak dese oder feller—you're in beeg hurry to be reech. Me—?" He shrugged his brawny shoulders and smiled cheerily. "I got plenty tam. I'm loafer. I enjoy myse'f—"

"So do I. For that matter, I'm enjoying myself now. I think this is all perfectly corking, and I'm having the time of my young life. Why, just think, over there"—Pierce waved his hand toward the northward panorama of white peaks and purple valleys—"everything is unknown!" His face lit up with some restless desire which the Frenchman appeared to understand, for he nodded seriously. "Sometimes it scares me a little."

"Wat you scare' 'bout, you?"

"Myself, I suppose. Sometimes I'm afraid I haven't the stuff in me to last."

"Dat's good sign." The speaker slipped his arms into his pack-harness and adjusted the tumpline to his forehead preparatory to rising. "You goin' mak' good 'sourdough' lak me. You goin' love de woods and de hills wen you know 'em. I can tell. Wal, I see you bimeby at Wite 'Orse."

"White Horse? Is that where you're going?"

"Yes. I'm batteau man; I'm goin' be pilot."

"Isn't that pretty dangerous work? They say those rapids are awful."

"Sure! Everybody scare' to try 'im. W'en I came up dey pay me fifty dollar for tak' one boat t'rough. By gosh! I never mak' so moch money—tree hondred dollar a day. I'm reech man now. You lak get reech queeck? I teach you be pilot. Swif' water, beeg noise! Plenty fun in dat!" The Canadian threw back his head and laughed loudly. "W'at you say?"

"I wouldn't mind trying it," Pierce confessed, "but I have no outfit.
I'm packing for wages. I'll be along when I get my grub-stake together."

"Good! I go purty queeck now. W'en you come, I tak' you t'rough de canyon free. In one day I teach you be good pilot. You ask for 'Poleon Doret. Remember?"

"I say!" Phillips halted the cheerful giant as he was about to rise.
"Do you know, you're the first man who has offered to do me a favor;
you're the only one who hasn't tried to hold me back and climb over me.
You're the first man I've seen with—with a smile on his face."

The speaker nodded. "I know! It's peety, too. Dese poor feller is scare', lak' you. Dey don' onderstan'. But bimeby, dey get wise; dey learn to he'p de oder feller, dey learn dat a smile will carry a pack or row a boat. You remember dat. A smile and a song, she'll shorten de miles and mak' fren's wid everybody. Don' forget w'at I tell you."

"Thank you, I won't," said Pierce, with a flicker of amusement at the man's brief sermon. This Doret was evidently a sort of backwoods preacher.

"Adieu!" With another flashing smile and a wave of his hand the fellow joined the procession and went on over the crest.

It had been pleasant to exchange even these few friendly words, for of late the habit of silence had been forced upon Pierce Phillips. For weeks now he had toiled among reticent men who regarded him with hostility, who made way for him with reluctance. Haste, labor, strain had numbed and brutalized them; fatigue had rendered them irritable, and the strangeness of their environment had made them both fearful and suspicious. There was no good-fellowship, no consideration on the Chilkoot. This was a race against time, and the stakes went to him who was most ruthless. Phillips had not exaggerated. Until this morning, he had received no faintest word of encouragement, no slightest offer of help. Not once had a hand been outstretched to him, and every inch he had gained had been won at the cost of his own efforts and by reason of his own determination.

He was yet warm with a wordless gratitude at the Frenchman's cheer when a figure came lurching toward him and fell into the space Doret had vacated. This man was quite the opposite of the one who had just left; he was old and he was far from robust. He fell face downward and lay motionless. Impulsively Phillips rose and removed the new-comer's pack.

"That last lift takes it out of you, doesn't it?" he inquired, sympathetically.

After a moment the stranger lifted a thin, colorless face overgrown with a bushy gray beard and began to curse in a gasping voice.

The youth warned him. "You're only tiring yourself, my friend. It's all down-hill from here."

The sufferer regarded Phillips from a pair of hard, smoky-blue eyes in which there lurked both curiosity and surprise.

"I say!" he panted. "You're the first white man I've met in two weeks."

Pierce laughed. "It's the result of a good example. A fellow was decent to me just now."

"This is the kind of work that gives a man dead babies," groaned the stranger. "And these darned trail-hogs!" He ground his teeth vindictively. "'Get out of the way!' 'Hurry up, old man!' 'Step lively, grandpa!' That's what they say. They snap at your heels like coyotes. Hurry? You can't force your luck!" The speaker struggled into a sitting posture and in an apologetic tone explained: "I dassent lay down or I'll get rheumatism. Tough guys—frontiersmen—Pah!" He spat out the exclamation with disgust, then closed his eyes again and sank back against his burden. "Coyotes! That's what they are! They'd rob a carcass, they'd gnaw each other's bones to get through ahead of the ice."

Up out of the chasm below came a slow-moving file of Indian packers. Their eyes were bent upon the ground, and they stepped noiselessly into one another's tracks. The only sound they made came from their creaking pack-leathers. They paused briefly to breathe and to take in their surroundings, then they went on and out of sight.

When they had disappeared the stranger spoke in a changed tone. "Poor devils! I wonder what they've done. And you?" he turned to Phillips. "What sins have you committed?"

"Oh, just the ordinary ones. But I don't look at it that way. This is a sort of a lark for me, and I'm having a great time. It's pretty fierce, I'll admit, but—I wouldn't miss it for anything. Would you?"

"WOULD I? In a minute! You're young, I'm old. I've got rheumatism and—a partner. He can't pack enough grub for his own lunch, and I have to do it all. He's a Jonah, too—born on Friday, or something. Last night somebody stole a sack of our bacon. Sixty pounds, and every pound had cost me sweat!" Again the speaker ground his teeth vindictively. "Lord! I'd like to catch the fellow that did it! I'd take a drop of blood for every drop of sweat that bacon cost. Have you lost anything?"

"I haven't anything to lose. I'm packing for wages to earn money enough to buy an outfit."

After a brief survey of Phillips' burden, the stranger said, enviously: "Looks like you wouldn't have to make more than a trip or two. I wish I could pack like you do, but I'm stove up. At that, I'm better than my partner! He couldn't carry a tune." There was a pause. "He eats good, though; eats like a hired man and he snores so I can't sleep. I just lie awake nights and groan at the joints and listen to him grow old. He can't even guard our grub-pile."

"The Vigilantes will put a stop to this stealing," Pierce ventured.

"Think so? Who's going to keep an eye on them? Who's going to strangle the Stranglers? Chances are they're the very ones that are lifting our grub. I know these citizens' committees." Whatever the physical limitations of the rheumatic Argonaut, it was plain that his temper was active and his resentment strong.

Phillips had cooled off by this time; in fact, the chill breath of the snow-fields had begun to penetrate his sodden clothing, therefore he prepared to take up his march.

"Going through to Linderman?" queried the other man. "So am I. If you'll wait a second I'll join you. Maybe we can give each other a hand."

The speaker's motive was patent; nevertheless, Phillips obligingly acceded to his request, and a short time later assisted him into his harness, whereupon they set out one behind the other. Pierce's pack was at least double the weight of his companion's, and it gave him a pleasurable thrill to realize that he was one of the strong, one of the elect; he wondered pityingly how long this feeble, middle-aged man could last.

Before they had tramped far, however, he saw that the object of his pity possessed a quality which was lacking in many of the younger, stronger stampeders—namely, a grim determination, a dogged perseverance—no poor substitute, indeed, for youth and brawn. Once the man was in motion he made no complaint, and he managed to maintain a very good pace.

Leaving the crest of Chilkoot behind them, the travelers bore to the right across the snowcap, then followed the ridge above Crater Lake. Every mile or two they rested briefly to relieve their chafed and aching shoulders. They exchanged few words while they were in motion, for one soon learns to conserve his forces on the trail, but when they lay propped against their packs they talked.

Phillips' abundant vigor continued to evoke the elder man's frank admiration; he eyed the boy approvingly and plied him with questions. Before they had traveled many miles he had learned what there was to learn, for Pierce answered his questions frankly and told him about the sacrifice his family had made in order to send him North, about the trip itself, about his landing at Dyea, and all the rest. When he came to the account of that shell-game the grizzled stranger smiled.

"I've lived in wide-open countries all my life," said the latter, "but this beats anything I ever saw. Why, the crooks outnumber the honest men and they're running things to suit themselves. One of 'em tried to lay me. ME!" He chuckled as if the mere idea was fantastically humorous. "Have you heard about this Soapy Smith? He's the boss, the bell-cow, and he's made himself mayor of Skagway. Can you beat it? I'll bet some of his men are on our Citizens' Committee at Sheep Camp. They need a lot of killing, they do, and they'll get it. What did you do after you lost your money?"

"I fell in with two brothers and went to packing."

"Went partners with them?'

"No, they—" Phillips' face clouded, he hesitated briefly. "I merely lived with them and helped them with their outfit from time to time. We're at Sheep Camp now, and I share their tent whenever I'm there. I'm about ready to pull out and go it alone."

"Right! And don't hook up with anybody." The old man spoke with feeling. "Look at me. I'm nesting with a dodo—darned gray-whiskered milliner! He's so ornery I have to hide the ax every time I see him. I just yearn to put him out of his misery, but I dassent. Of course he has his points—everybody has; he's a game old rooster and he loves me. That's all that saves him."

Phillips was greatly interested to learn that two men so unfitted for this life, this country, should have essayed the hardships of the Chilkoot trail. It amazed him to learn that already most of their outfit was at Linderman.

"Do you mean to say that you have done all the packing for yourself and your partner?" he inquired.

"N—no. Old Jerry totters across with a package of soda-crackers once in a while. You must have heard him; he creaks like a gate. Of course he eats up all the crackers before he gets to Linderman and then gorges himself on the heavy grub that I've lugged over, but in spite of that we've managed to make pretty good time." After a moment of meditation he continued: "Say! You ought to see that old buzzard eat! It's disgusting, but it's interesting. It ain't so much the expense that I care about as the work. Old Jerry ought to be in an institution—some place where they've got wheel-chairs and a big market-garden. But he's plumb helpless, so I can't cut him loose and let him bleach his bones in a strange land. I haven't got the heart."

They were resting at the Long Lake outlet, some time later, when the old man inquired:

"I presume you've got a camp at Linderman, eh?"

"No. I have some blankets cached there and I sleep out whenever I can't make the round trip."

"Round trip? Round trip in one day? Why, that's thirty miles!"

"Real miles, too. This country makes a man of a fellow. I wouldn't mind sleeping out if I were sure of a hot meal once in a while, but money is no good this side of the Summit, and these people won't even let a stranger use their stoves."

"You can't last long at that, my boy."

Phillips smiled cheerfully. "I don't have to last much longer. I sent a thousand dollars to Dyea this morning by Jim McCaskey, one of the fellows I live with. He's going to put it in Healy he's altogether different to us tenderfeet. He made me rather ashamed of myself."

The elderly man nodded. "Most pioneers are big-calibered. I'm a sort of pioneer myself, but that infernal partner of mine has about ruined my disposition. Take it by and large, though, it pays a man to be accommodating."

CHAPTER III

Having crossed the high barrens, Phillips and his companion dropped down to timber-line and soon arrived at Linderman, their journey's end. This was perhaps the most feverishly busy camp on the entire thirty-mile Dyea trail, but, unlike the coast towns, there was no merrymaking, no gaiety, no gambling here. Linderman's fever came from overwork, not from overplay. A tent village had sprung up at the head of the lake, and from dawn until dark it echoed to the unceasing sound of ax and hammer, of plane and saw. The air was redolent with the odor of fresh-cut spruce and of boiling tar, for this was the shipyard where an army of Jasons hewed and joined and fitted, each upon a bark of his own making. Half-way down the lake was the Boundary, and a few miles below that again was the customs station with its hateful red-jacketed police. Beyond were uncharted waters, quite as perilous, because quite as unknown, as those traversed by that first band of Argonauts. Deep lakes, dark canons, roaring rapids lay between Linderman and the land of the Golden Fleece, but the nearer these men approached those dangers the more eagerly they pressed on.

Already the weeding-out process had gone far and the citizens of Linderman were those who had survived it. The weak and the irresolute had disappeared long since; these fellows who labored so mightily to forestall the coming winter were the strong and the fit and the enduring—the kind the North takes to herself.

In spite of his light pack, Phillips' elderly trailmate was all but spent. He dragged his feet, he stumbled without reason, the lines in his face were deeply set, and his bearded lips had retreated from his teeth in a grin of exhaustion.

"Yonder's the tent," he said, finally, and his tone was eloquent of relief.

In and out among canvas walls and taut guy-ropes the travelers wound their way, emerging at length upon a gravelly beach where vast supplies of provisions were cached. All about, in various stages of construction, were skeletons of skiffs, of scows, and of barges; the ground was spread with a carpet of shavings and sawdust.

Pierce's companion paused; then, after an incredulous stare, he said:
"Look! Is that smoke coming from my stovepipe?"

"Why, yes!"

There could be no mistake about it; from the tent in question arose the plain evidence that a lively fire was burning inside.

"Well, I'll be darned!" breathed the elder man. "Somebody's jumped the cache."

"Perhaps your partner—"

"He's in Sheep Camp." The speaker laboriously loosened his pack and let it fall, then with stiff, clumsy fingers he undid the top buttons of his vest and, to Pierce's amazement, produced a large-calibered revolver, which he mechanically cocked and uncocked several times, the while his eyes remained hypnotically fixed upon the telltale streamer of smoke. Not only did his action appear to be totally uncalled for, but he himself had undergone a startling transformation and Phillips was impelled to remonstrate.

"Here! What the deuce—?" he began.

"Listen to me!" The old man spoke in a queer, suppressed tone, and his eyes, when he turned them upon his fellow-packer, were even smokier than usual. "Somebody's up to a little thievin', most likely, and it looks like I had 'em red-handed. I've been layin' for this!"

Pierce divested himself of his pack-harness, then said, simply, "If that's the case, I'll give you a hand."

"Better stand back," the other cautioned him. "I don't need any help—this is my line." The man's fatigue had fallen from him; of a sudden he had become surprisingly alert and forceful. He stole forward, making as little noise as possible, and Phillips followed at his back. They came to a pause within arm's-length of the tent flaps, which they noted were securely tied.

"Hello inside!" The owner spoke suddenly and with his free hand he jerked at one of the knots.

There came an answering exclamation, a movement; then the flaps were seized and firmly held.

"You can't come in!" cried a voice.

"Let go! Quick!" The old man's voice was harsh.

"You'll have to wait a minute. I'm undressed."

Phillips retreated a step, as did the other man; they stared at each other.

"A woman!" Pierce breathed.

"Lord!" The owner of the premises slowly, reluctantly sheathed his weapon under his left arm.

"I invited myself in," the voice explained—it was a deep-pitched contralto voice. "I was wet and nobody offered to let me dry out, so I took possession of the first empty tent I came to. Is it yours?"

"It is—half of it. I'm mighty tired and I ain't particular how you look, so hurry up." As the two men returned for their loads the speaker went on, irritably. "She's got her nerve! I s'pose she's one of these actresses. There's a bunch of 'em on the trail. Actresses!" He snorted derisively. "I bet she smells of cologne, and, gosh! how I hate it!"

When he and Pierce returned they were admitted promptly enough, and any lingering suspicions of the trespasser's intent were instantly dissipated. The woman was clad in a short, damp underskirt which fell about to her knees; she had drawn on the only dry article of apparel in sight, a man's sweater jacket; she had thrust her bare feet into a pair of beaded moccasins; on a line attached to the ridgepole over her head sundry outer garments were steaming. Phillips' first thought was that this woman possessed the fairest, the whitest, skin he had ever seen; it was like milk. But his first impressions were confused, for embarrassment followed quickly upon his entrance and he felt an impulse to withdraw. The trespasser was not at all the sort of person he had expected to find, and her complete self-possession at the intrusion, her dignified greeting, left him not a little chagrined at his rudeness. She eyed both men coolly from a pair of ice-blue eyes—eyes that bespoke her nationality quite as plainly as did her features, her dazzling complexion, and her head of fine, straight flaxen hair. She was Scandinavian, she was a Norsewoman; that much was instantly apparent. She appeared to derive a certain malicious pleasure now from the consternation her appearance evoked; there was a hint of contempt, of defiance, in her smile. In a voice so low-pitched that its quality alone saved it from masculinity, she said:

"Pray don't be distressed; you merely startled me, that's all. My Indians managed to get hold of some hootch at Tagish and upset our canoe just below here. It was windy and of course they couldn't swim—none of them can, you know—so I had hard work to save them. I've already explained how I happened to select this particular refuge. Your neighbors—" her lip curled disdainfully, then she shrugged. "Well, I never got such a reception as they gave me, but I suppose they're cheechakos. I'll be off for Dyea early in the morning. If you can put me up for the night I'll pay you well."

During this speech, delivered in a matter-of-fact, business-like tone, the owner of the tent had managed to overcome his first surprise; he removed his hat now and began with an effort:

"I'm a bad hand at begging pardons, miss, but you see I've been suffering the pangs of bereavement lately over some dear, departed grub. I thought you were a thief and I looked forward to the pleasure of seeing you dance. I apologize. Would you mind telling me where you came from?"

"From Dawson." There was a silence the while the flaxen-haired woman eyed her interrogator less disdainfully. "Yes, by poling-boat and birch-bark. I'm not fleeing the law; I'm not a cache-robber."

"You're—all alone?"

The woman nodded. "Can you stow me away for the night? You may name your own price."

"The price won't cripple you. I'm sorry there ain't some more women here at Linderman, but—there ain't. We had one—a doctor's wife, but she's gone."

"I met her at Lake Marsh."

"We've a lot more coming, but they're not here. My name is Linton. The more-or-less Christian prefix thereto is Tom. I've got a partner named Jerry. Put the two together, and drink hearty. This young man is Mr.—" The speaker turned questioningly upon Phillips, who made himself known. "I'm a family man. Mr. Phillips is a—well, he's a good packer. That's all I know about him. I'm safe and sane, but he's about the right age to propose marriage to you as soon as he gets his breath. A pretty woman in this country has to expect that, as you probably know."

The woman smiled and shook hands with both men, exchanging a grip as firm and as strong as theirs. "I am the Countess Courteau," said she.

"The—which?" Mr. Linton queried, with a start.

The Countess laughed frankly. "It is French, but I'm a Dane. I think my husband bought the title—they're cheap in his country. He was a poor sort of count, and I'm a poor sort of countess. But I'm a good cook—a very good cook indeed—and if you'll excuse my looks and permit me to wear your sweater I'll prepare supper."

Linton's eyes twinkled as he said, "I've never et with the nobility and I don't know as I'd like their diet, for a steady thing, but—the baking-powder is in that box and we fry with bacon grease."

Wood and water were handy, the Countess Courteau had a quick and capable way, therefore supper was not long delayed. The tent was not equipped for housekeeping, hence the diners held their plates in their laps and either harpooned their food from the frying-pan or ladled it from tin cans, but even so it had a flavor to-night so unaccustomed, so different, that both men grasped the poignant fact that the culinary art is mysteriously wedded to female hands. Mr. Linton voiced this thought in his own manner.

"If a countess cooks like this," he observed, "I'd sure love to board with a duke." Later, while the dishes were being washed and when his visitor had shown no intention of explaining her presence in further detail, he said, whimsically: "See here, ma'am, our young friend has been watching you like he was afraid you'd disappear before he gets an eyeful, and it's plain to be seen that he's devoured by curiosity. As for me, I'm totally lacking in that miserable trait, and I abhor it in others; but all the same, if you don't see fit to tell us pretty quick how you came to pole up from Dawson and what in Heaven's name a woman like you is doing here, a lone and without benefit of chaperon, I shall pass away in dreadful agony."

"It's very simple," the Countess told him. "I have important business 'outside.' I couldn't go down the river, for the Yukon is low, the steamers are aground on the flats, and connections at St. Michael's are uncertain at best. Naturally I came up against the stream. I've been working 'up-stream' all my life." She flashed him a smile at this latter statement. "As for a chaperon—I've never felt the need of one. Do you think they're necessary in this country?"

"Does your husband, Count—"

"My husband doesn't count. That's the trouble." The speaker laughed again and without the faintest trace of embarrassment. "He has been out of the picture for years." She turned to Phillips and inquired, abruptly, "What is the packing price to Sheep Camp?"

"Fifty cents a pound, coming this way. Going back it is nothing," he told her, gallantly.

"I haven't much to carry, but if you'll take it I'll pay you the regular price. I'd like to leave at daylight."

"You seem to be in a rush," Mr. Linton hazarded, mildly.

"I am. Now, then, if you don't mind I'll turn in, for I must be in Dyea to-morrow night."

Pierce Phillips had said little during the meal or thereafter, to be sure, nevertheless, he had thought much. He had indeed used his eyes to good purpose, and now he regretted exceedingly that the evening promised to be so short. The more he saw of this unconventional countess the more she intrigued his interest. She was the most unusual woman he had ever met and he was eager to learn all about her. His knowledge of women was peculiarly elemental; his acquaintance with the sex was extremely limited. Those he had known in his home town were one kind, a familiar kind; those he had encountered since leaving home were, for the most part, of a totally different class and of a type that awoke his disapproval. To a youth of his training and of his worldly experience the genus woman is divided into two species—old women and young women. The former are interesting only in a motherly way, and demand nothing more than abstract courtesy. They do not matter. The latter, on the contrary, separate themselves again into two families or suborders—viz., good women and bad women. The demarcation between the two branches of the suborder is distinct; there is nothing common to the two. Good women are good through and through—bad ones are likewise thoroughly bad. There are no intermediate types, no troublesome variations, no hybrids nor crosses.

The Countess Courteau, it seemed to him, was a unique specimen and extremely hard to classify, in that she was neither old nor young—or, what was even more puzzling, in that she was both. In years she was not far advanced—little older than he, in fact—but in experience, in wisdom, in self-reliance she was vastly his superior; and experience, he believed, is what makes women old. As to the family, the suborder to which she belonged, he was at an utter loss to decide. For instance, she accepted her present situation with a sang-froid equaling that of a camp harpy, a few of whom Pierce had seen; then, too, she was, or had been, married to a no-account foreigner to whom she referred with a calloused and most unwifely flippancy; moreover, she bore herself with a freedom, a boldness, quite irreconcilable to the modesty of so-called "good women." Those facts were enough to classify her definitely, and yet despite them she was anything but common, and it would have taken rare courage indeed to transgress that indefinable barrier of decorum with which she managed to surround herself. There was something about her as cold and as pure as blue ice, and she gave the same impression of crystal clarity. All in all, hers was a baffling personality and Phillips fell asleep with the riddle of it unanswered. He awoke in the morning with it still upon his mind.

The Countess Courteau had been first to arise; she was fully dressed and the sheet-iron stove was glowing when her companions roused themselves. By the time they had returned from the lake she had breakfast ready.

"Old Jerry is going to be awful sore at missing this court function,"
Mr. Linton told her during the meal. "He's a great ladies' man, Old
Jerry is."

"Perhaps I shall meet him."

"You wouldn't like him if you did; nobody likes him, except me, and I hate him." Linton sighed. "He's a handicap to a young man like me."

"Why don't you send him home?"

"Home? Old Jerry would die before he'd turn back. He'd lift his muzzle and bay at the very idea until some stranger terminated him. Well, he's my cross; I s'pose I've got to bear him."

"Who is Mr. Linton?" the Countess inquired, as she and Pierce left the village behind them.

"Just an ordinary stampeder, like the rest of us. I think."

"He's more than that. He's the kind who'll go through and make good. I dare say his partner is just like him."

Phillips approved of the Countess Courteau this morning even more thoroughly than he had on the evening previous, and they had not walked far before he realized that as a traveler she was the equal of him or of any man. She was lithe and strong and light of foot; the way she covered ground awoke his sincere admiration. She did not trouble to talk much and she dispensed with small talk in others; she appeared to be absorbed in her own affairs, and only when they rested did she engage in conversation. The more Phillips studied her and the better acquainted he became with her the larger proportions did she assume. Not only was she completely mistress of herself, but she had a forceful, compelling way with others; there was a natural air of authority about her, and she managed in some subtle manner to invest herself and her words with importance. She was quite remarkable.

Now, the trail breeds its own peculiar intimacy; although the two talked little, they nevertheless got to know each other quite well, and when they reached the Summit, about midday, Phillips felt a keen regret that their journey was so near its end.

A mist was drifting up from the sea; it obscured the valley below and clung to the peaks like ragged garments. Up and out of this fog came the interminable procession of burden-bearers. The Countess paused to observe them and to survey the accumulation of stores which crowned the watershed.

"I didn't dream so many were coming," said she.

"It's getting worse daily," Pierce told her. "Dyea is jammed, and so is
Skagway. The trails are alive with men."

"How many do you think will come?"

"There's no telling. Twenty, thirty, fifty thousand, perhaps. About half of them turn back when they see the Chilkoot."

"And the rest will wish they had. It's a hard country; not one in a hundred will prosper."

They picked their way down the drunken descent to the Scales, then breasted the sluggish human current to Sheep Camp.

A group of men were reading a notice newly posted upon the wall of the log building which served as restaurant and hotel, and after scanning it Pierce explained:

"It's another call for a miners' meeting. We're having quite a time with cache-robbers. If we catch them we'll hang them."

The Countess nodded. "Right! They deserve it. You know we don't have
any stealing on the 'inside.' Now, then, I'll say good-by." She paid
Pierce and extended her hand to him. "Thank you for helping me across.
I'll be in Dyea by dark."

"I hope we'll meet again," he said, with a slight flush.

The woman favored him with one of her generous, friendly smiles. "I hope so, too. You're a nice boy. I like you." Then she stepped into the building and was gone.

"A nice boy!" Phillips was pained. A boy! And he the sturdiest packer on the pass, with perhaps one exception! That was hardly just to him. If they did meet again—and he vowed they would—he'd show her he was more than a boy. He experienced a keen desire to appear well in her eyes, to appear mature and forceful. He asked himself what kind of man Count Courteau could be; he wondered if he, Pierce Phillips, could fall in love with such a woman as this, an older woman, a woman who had been married. It would be queer to marry a countess, he reflected.

As he walked toward his temporary home he beheld quite a gathering of citizens, and paused long enough to note that they were being harangued by the confidence-man who had first initiated him into the subtleties of the three-shell game. Mr. Broad had climbed upon a raised tent platform and was presenting an earnest argument against capital punishment. Two strangers upon the fringe of the crowd were talking, and Pierce heard one of them say:

"Of course he wants the law to take its course, inasmuch as there isn't any law. He's one of the gang."

"The surest way to flush a covey of crooks is to whistle for old Judge
Lynch," the other man agreed. "Listen to him!"

"Have they caught the cache-robbers?" Phillips made bold to inquire.

"No, and they won't catch them, with fellows like that on the committee. The crooks hang together and we don't. If I had my way that's just what they'd do—hang together. I'd start in by bending a limb over that rascal."

Phillips had attended several of these indignation meetings and, remembering that all of them bad proved purposeless, he went on toward the McCaskey brothers' tent. He and the McCaskeys were not the closest of friends, in spite of the fact that they had done him a favor—a favor, by the way, for which he had paid many times over—nevertheless, they were his most intimate acquaintances and he felt an urgent desire to tell them about his unusual experience. His desire to talk about the Countess Courteau was irresistible.

But when he entered the tent his greeting fell flat, for Joe, the elder
McCaskey, addressed him sharply, almost accusingly:

"Say, it's about time you showed up!"

"What's the matter?" Pierce saw that the other brother was stretched out in his blankets and that his head was bandaged. "Hello!" he cried. "What ails Jim? Is he sick?"

"Sick? Worse than sick," Joe grumbled. "That money of yours is to blame for it. It's a wonder he isn't dead."

"My money? How?" Phillips was both mystified and alarmed.

Jim raised himself in his blankets and said, irritably: "After this you can run your own pay-car, kid. I'm through, d'you hear?"

"Speak out. What's wrong?"

"Jim was stuck up, that's what's wrong. That's enough, isn't it? They bent a six-gun over his head and grabbed your coin. He's got a dent in his crust the size of a saucer!"

Phillips' face whitened slowly. "My money! Robbed!" he gasped. "JIM!
Who did it? How could you let them?"

The younger McCaskey fell back weakly; he waved a feeble gesture at his brother. "Joe'll tell you. I'm dizzy; my head ain't right yet."

"A stranger stopped him—asked him something or other—and another guy flattened him from behind. That's all he remembers. When he came to he found he'd been frisked. He was still dippy when he got home, so I put him to bed. He got up and moved around a bit this morning, but he's wrong in his head."

Phillips seated himself upon a candle-box. "Robbed!" he exclaimed, weakly. "Broke—again! Gee! That was hard money! It was the first I ever earned!"

Joe McCaskey's dark face was doubly unpleasant as he frowned down upon the youth. "Thinking about nothing except your coin, eh? Why don't you think about Jim? He did you a favor and 'most lost his life."

"Oh, I'm sorry—of course!" Phillips rose heavily and crossed to the bed. "I didn't mean to appear selfish. I don't blame you, Jim. I'll get a doctor for you, then you must describe the hold-ups. Give me a hint who they are and I'll go after them."

The younger brother rolled his head in negation and mumbled, sullenly:
"I'm all right. I don't want a doctor."

Joe explained for him: "He never saw the fellows before and he don't seem to remember much about them. That's natural enough. Your money's gone clean, kid, and a yelp won't get you anything. The crooks are organized and if you set up a holler they'll get all of us. They'll alibi anybody you accuse—it's no trick to alibi a pal—"

"Isn't it?" The question was uttered unexpectedly; it came from the front of the tent and startled the occupants thereof, who turned to behold a stranger just entering their premises. He was an elderly man; he possessed a quick, shrewd eye; he had poked the tent flap aside with the barrel of a Colt's revolver. Through the door-opening could be seen other faces and the bodies of other men who had likewise stolen up unheard. During the moment of amazement following his first words these other men crowded in behind him.

"Maybe it 'll be more of a trick than you figure on." The stranger's gray mustache lifted in a grin that was not at all friendly.

"What the blazes—?" Joe McCaskey exploded.

"Go easy!" the intruder cautioned him. "We've been laying around, waiting for your pal to get back." With a movement of the revolver muzzle he indicated Phillips. "Now then, stretch! On your toes and reach high. You there, get up!" He addressed himself to Jim, who rose from his bed and thrust his hands over his bandaged head. "That's nice!" the stranger nodded approvingly. "Now don't startle me; don't make any quick moves or I may tremble this gun off—she's easy on the trigger." To his friends he called, "Come in, gentlemen; they're gentle."

There were four of the latter; they appeared to be substantial men, men of determination. All were armed.

Pierce Phillips' amazement gave way to indignation. "What is this, an arrest or a hold-up?" he inquired.

"It's right smart of both," the leader of the posse drawled, in a voice which betrayed the fact that he hailed from somewhere in the far Southwest. "We're in quest of a bag of rice—a bag with a rip in it and 'W. K.' on the side. While I slap your pockets, just to see if you're ironed, these gentlemen are goin' to look over your outfit."

"This is an outrage!" Jim McCaskey complained. "I'm just getting over one stick-up. I'm a sick man."

"Sure!" his brother exclaimed, furiously. "You're a pack of fools! What d'you want, anyhow?"

"We want you to shut up! See that you do." The old man's eyes snapped. "If you've got to say something, tell us how there happens to be a trail of rice from this man's cache"—he indicated one of his companions—"right up to your tent."

The McCaskeys exchanged glances. Phillips turned a startled face upon them.

"It isn't much of a trail, but it's enough to follow."

For a few moments nothing was said, and meanwhile the search of the tent went on. When Pierce could no longer remain silent he broke out:

"There's some mistake. These boys packed this grub from Dyea and I helped with some of it."

"Aren't you partners?" some one inquired.

Joe McCaskey answered this question. "No. He landed broke. We felt sorry for him and took him in."

Joe was interrupted by an exclamation from one of the searchers. "Here it is!" said the man. He had unearthed a bulging canvas sack which he flung down for inspection. "There's my mark, 'W. K.,' and there's the rip. I knew we had 'em right!"

After a brief examination the leader of the posse turned to his prisoners, whose hands were still held high, saying:

"Anything you can think of in the way of explanations you'd better save for the miners' meeting. It's waitin' to welcome you. We'll put a guard over this plunder till the rest of it is identified. Now, then, fall in line and don't crowd. After you, gentlemen."

Pierce Phillips realized that it was useless to argue, for his words would not be listened to, therefore he followed the McCaskeys out into the open air. The odium of this accusation was hard to bear; he bitterly resented his situation and something told him he would have to fight to clear himself; nevertheless, he was not seriously concerned over the outcome. Public feeling was high, to be sure; the men of Sheep Camp were in a dangerous frame of mind and their actions were liable to be hasty, ill-considered—their verdict was apt to be fantastic—but, secure in the knowledge of his innocence, Pierce felt no apprehension. Rather he experienced a thrill of excitement at the contretemps and at the ordeal which he knew was forthcoming.

The Countess Courteau had called him a boy. This wasn't a boy's business; this was a real man-sized adventure.

"Gee! What a day this has been!" he said to himself.

CHAPTER IV

The story of the first trial at Sheep Camp is an old one, but it differs with every telling. In the hectic hurry of that gold-rush many incidents were soon forgotten and such salient facts as did survive were deeply colored, for those were colorful days. That trial marked an epoch in early Yukon history, for, although its true significance was unsensed at the time, it really signalized the dawn of common honesty on the Chilkoot and the Chilkat trails, and it was the first move taken toward the disruption of organized outlawry—a bitter fight, by the way, which ended only in the tragic death of Soapy Smith and the flight of his notorious henchmen. Although the circumstances of the Sheep Camp demonstration now seem shocking, they did not seem so at the time, and they served a larger purpose than was at first apparent; not only did theft become an unprofitable and an uninteresting occupation thereafter, but also the men who shaped a code and drew first blood in defense of it experienced a beneficial reaction and learned to fit the punishment to the crime—no easy lesson to learn where life runs hot and where might is right.

The meeting was in session and it had been harangued into a dangerous frame of mind when Pierce Phillips and the two McCaskeys were led before it. A statement by the leader of the posse, corroborated by the owner of the missing sack of rice, roused the audience to a fury. Even while these stories were being told there came other men who had identified property of theirs among the provision piles inside the McCaskey tent, and when they, too, had made their reports the crowd began to mill; there were demands for a speedy trial and a swift vengeance.

These demands found loudest echo among the outlaw element for which Lucky Broad had acted as mouthpiece. Although the members of that band were unknown—as a matter of fact, no man knew his neighbor—nevertheless it was plain that there was an organization of crooks and that a strong bond of understanding existed between them. Now, inasmuch as the eye of suspicion had been turned away from them, now that a herring had been dragged across the trail, their obstructive tactics ended and they, too, became noisy in their clamor that justice be done.

The meeting was quickly organized along formal lines and a committee of three was appointed to conduct the hearing. The chairman of this committee-he constituted himself chairman by virtue of the fact that he was first nominated—made a ringing speech in which he praised his honesty, his fairness, and his knowledge of the law. He complimented the miners for their acumen in selecting for such a position of responsibility a man of his distinguished qualifications. It was plain that he believed they had chosen wisely. Then, having inquired the names of his two committeemen, he likewise commended them in glowing terms, although of course he could not praise them quite as unstintedly as he had praised himself. Still, he spoke well of them and concluded by stating that so long as affairs were left in his hands justice would be safeguarded and the rights of this miserable, cringing trio of thieves would be protected, albeit killing, in his judgment, was too mild a punishment for people of their caliber.

"Hear! Hear!" yelled the mob.

Pierce Phillips listened to this speech with a keenly personal and yet a peculiarly detached interest. The situation struck him as unreal, grotesque, and the whole procedure as futile. Under other circumstances it would have been grimly amusing; now he was uncomfortably aware that it was anything but that. There was no law whatever in the land save the will of these men; in their hands lay life or death, exoneration or infamy. He searched the faces round about him, but could find signs neither of friendship nor of sympathy. This done, he looked everywhere for a glimpse of a woman's straw-colored hair and was relieved to discover that the Countess Courteau was not in the audience. Doubtless she had left for Dyea and was already some distance down the trail. He breathed easier, for he did not wish her to witness his humiliation, and her presence would have merely added to his embarrassment.

The prosecution's case was quickly made, and it was a strong one. Even yet the damning trickle of rice grains could be traced through the moss and mire directly to the door of the prisoners' tent, and the original package, identified positively by its owner, was put in evidence. This in itself was enough; testimony from the other men who had likewise recovered merchandise they had missed and mourned merely strengthened the case and further inflamed the minds of the citizens.

From the first there had never been a doubt in Phillips' mind that the McCaskeys were guilty. The facts offered in evidence served only to explain certain things which had puzzled him at various times; nevertheless, his indignation and his contempt for them were tempered with regrets, for he could not but remember that they had befriended him. It was of course imperative that he establish his own innocence, but he determined that in so doing he would prejudice their case as little as possible. That was no more than the merest loyalty.

When it came tune to hear the defense, the McCaskeys stared at Pierce coolly; therefore he climbed to the tent platform and faced his accusers.

He made known his name, his birthplace, the ship which had borne him north. He told how he had landed at Dyea, how he had lost his last dollar at the gambling-table, how he had appealed to the McCaskey boys, and how they had given him shelter. That chance association, he took pains to explain, had continued, but had never ripened into anything more, anything closer; it was in no wise a partnership; he had nothing to do with them and they had nothing to do with him. Inasmuch as the rice had been stolen during the previous night, he argued that he could have had no hand in the theft, for he had spent the night in Linderman, which fact he offered to prove by two witnesses.

"Produce them," ordered the chairman.

"One of them is still at Linderman, the other was here in Sheep Camp an hour ago. She has probably started for Dyea by this time."

"A woman?"

"Yes, sir. I brought her across."

"What is her name?"

Phillips hesitated. "The Countess Courteau," said he. There was a murmur of interest; the members of the committee conferred with one an other.

"Do you mean to tell us that you've got a titled witness?" the self-appointed spokesman inquired. His face wore a smile of disbelief; when the prisoner flushed and nodded he called out over the heads of the crowd:

"Countess Courteau!" There was no answer. "Do any of you gentlemen know the Countess Courteau?" he inquired.

His question was greeted by a general laugh.

"Don't let him kid you," cried a derisive voice.

"Never heard of her, but I met four kings last night," yelled another.

"Call the Marquis of Queensberry," shouted still a third.

"Countess Courteau!" repeated the chairman, using his hands for a megaphone.

The cry was taken up by other throats. "Countess Courteau! Countess
Courteau!" they mocked. "Come, Countess! Nice Countess! Pretty
Countess!" There was a ribald note to this mockery which caused
Phillips' eyes to glow.

"She and the count have just left the palace. Let's get along with the hangin'," one shrill voice demanded.

"You won't hang me!" Phillips retorted, angrily.

"Be not so sure," taunted the acting judge. "Inasmuch as your countess appears to be constituted of that thin fabric of which dreams are made; inasmuch as there is no such animal—"

"Hol' up!" came a peremptory challenge. "M'sieu Jodge!" It was the big French Canadian whom Pierce had met on the crest of the divide; he came forward now, pushing his resistless way through the audience. "Wat for you say dere ain't nobody by dat name, eh?" He turned his back to the committee and addressed the meeting. "Wat for you hack lak dis, anyhow? By gosh! I heard 'bout dis lady! She's ol'-timer lak me."

"Well, trot her out! Where is she?"

"She's on her way to Dyea," Pierce insisted. "She can't be far—"

'Poleon Doret was angry. "I don' listen to no woman be joke 'bout, you hear? Dis boy spik true. He was in Linderman las' night, for I seen him on top of Chilkoot yesterday myse'f, wit' pack on his back so beeg as a barn."

"Do you know the accused?" queried the spokesman.

'Poleon turned with a shrug. "Non! No! But—yes, I know him li'l bit. Anybody can tell he's hones' boy. By Gar! She's strong feller, too—pack lak hell!"

Pierce Phillips was grateful for this evidence of faith, inconclusive as it was in point of law. He was sorry, therefore, to see the Frenchman, after replying shortly, impatiently, to several senseless cross-questions, force his way out of the crowd and disappear, shaking his head and muttering in manifest disgust at the temper of his townsmen.

But although one friend had gone, another took his place—a champion, by the way, whom Pierce would never have suspected of being such. Profiting by the break in the proceedings, Lucky Broad spoke up.

"Frenchy was right—this kid's on the square," he declared. "I'm the gentleman who gathered his wheat at Dyea—he fairly fed it to me, like he said—so I guess I'm acquainted with him. We're all assembled up to mete out justice, and justice is going to be met, but, say! a sucker like this boy wouldn't KNOW enough to steal!"

It was doubtful if this witness, well-intentioned as he was, carried conviction, for, although his followers took their cue from him and applauded loudly, their very manifestations of faith aroused suspicion among the honest men present.

One of the latter, a red-faced, square-shouldered person, thrust a determined countenance close to Broad's and cried, angrily: "Is that so? Well, I'm for hangin' anybody you boost!"

This sentiment met with such instantaneous second that the confidence-man withdrew precipitately. "Have it your own way," he gave in, with an airy gesture. "But take it from me you're a bunch of boobs. Hangin' ain't a nice game, and the guy that hollers loudest for it is usually the one that needs it worst."

It took some effort on the part of the chairman to bring the meeting to order so that the hearing could be resumed.

Phillips went on with his story and told of spending the night with Tom Linton, then of his return to Sheep Camp to learn that he had been robbed of all his savings. Corroboration of this misfortune he left to the oral testimony of the two brothers McCaskey and to the circumstantial evidence of Jim's bandaged head.

While it seemed to him that he had given a simple, straightforward account of himself which would establish his innocence, so far, at least, as it applied to the theft of the sack of rice, he was uncomfortably aware that evidence of systematic pilfering had been introduced and that evidence he had not met except indirectly. His proof seemed good so far as it went, but it did not go far, and he believed it all too likely that his hearers still considered him an accomplice, at the best.

Jim McCaskey was next called and Pierce made way for him. The younger brother made a poor start, but he warmed up to his own defense, gaining confidence and ease as he talked.

In the first place, both he and Joe were innocent of this outrageous charge—as innocent as unborn babes—and this air of suspicion was like to smother them. This Jim declared upon his honor. The evidence was strong, he admitted, but it was purely circumstantial, and he proposed to explain it away. He proposed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; letting the blame fall where it would and leaving the verdict entirely up to his hearers. Joe would substantiate his every statement.

It was quite true that he and his brother had been Good Samaritans; they had opened their doors and had taken in this young man when he was hungry and homeless, but that was their habit. They had fed him, they had shared their blankets with him, they had helped him in a thousand ways, not without serious inconvenience to themselves. Why, only on the day before the speaker himself had volunteered to take the young man's earnings to Dyea for safekeeping, thereby letting himself in for an unmerciful mauling, and suffering a semi-fractured skull, the marks of which would doubtless stay with him for a long time.

Phillips had left camp early the previous morning, to be sure, and he had not come home until an hour or two ago, but where he had gone, how he had occupied himself during his absence, where he had spent the night, of course the speaker had no way of knowing. Phillips was often absent at night; he came and he went at all hours, and neither Joe nor the witness ever questioned him, believing his statements that he was packing for hire. Neither his brother nor he had ever seen that sack of rice antil it was uncovered by the posse, and as for the other plunder, it was all part and parcel of an outfit which their guest had been assembling for some time. They supposed, of course, that he had bought it, bit by bit, with his earnings.

Pierce Phillips listened in speechless amazement, scarcely believing his own ears, the while Jim McCaskey struck the fetters from his own and his brother's limbs and placed them upon his. It seemed impossible that such a story could carry weight, but from all indications it did. When Joe McCaskey took the center of the stage and glibly corroborated his brother's statements Pierce interrupted him savagely, only to be warned that he'd better be silent.

"That's all we've got to say," concluded the elder of the precious pair when he had finished. "You can judge for yourselves who did the stealing. Jim and I've got all the grub we want; this fellow hasn't any."

"Have you anything to say for yourself?" The chairman addressed himself to Phillips.

"I have." Pierce again took the stand. "You're making a great mistake," he said, earnestly. "These men have lied; they're trying to save themselves at my expense. I've told you everything, now I demand that you wait to hear the Countess Courteau or Mr. Linton. They'll prove where I spent last night, at least."

"Mr. Chairman!" A stranger claimed general attention. "I've listened to the evidence and it's strong enough for me. The grub didn't get up and walk away by itself; somebody took it. Grub is more than grub in this country; it's more than money; it's a man's life, that's what it is. Now, then, the McCaskeys had an outfit when they landed; they didn't need to steal; but this fellow, this dirty ingrate, he hadn't a pound. I don't swallow his countess story and I don't care a hoot where he was last night. Let's decide first what punishment a thief gets, then let's give it to him."

"Hear! Hear!" came the cry.

"Hanging is good enough for thieves!" shouted the choleric individual who had so pointedly made known his distrust of Lucky Broad. "I say stretch 'em."

"Right! Let's make an example!"

"Hang him!" There rose a hoarse chorus of assent to this suggestion, whereupon the chairman stepped forward.

"All those in favor of hanging—" he began. But again he was interrupted by 'Poleon Doret, who once more bored his way into the crowd, crying:

"Wait! I got somet'ing to say." He was breathing heavily, as if from a considerable exertion; perspiration stood upon his face; his eyes were flashing. He vaulted lightly to the platform, then flung out his long arms, crying: "You hack lak crazee mans. Wat talk is dis 'bout hangin'? You ain't wild hanimals!"

The red-faced advocate of the noose who had spoken a moment before answered him in a loud voice:

"I paid hard money for my grub and I've packed every pound of it on my back. You can take a mark's life by stealing his matches the same as by shooting him. I want to see thieves on the end of a rope."

Doret bent down to him. "All right, m'sieu! You want blood; we give it to you. Bring on dat rope. I'll put it on dis boy's neck if you'll do de pullin'. For me, I ain't care 'bout killin' no-body, but you—you're brave man. You hang on tight w'ile dis boy he keeck, an' strangle, an' grow black in de face. It's goin' mak you feel good all over!"

"Rats! I won't do the trick, but—"

"Somebody mus' do de pullin'." 'Poleon grinned. "He ain't goin' hang himse'f. Mebbe you got pardner w'at lak give you hand, eh?" He raised his head and laughed at the crowd. "Messieurs, you see how 'tis. It tak' brave man to hang a feller lak dis. Some day policeman's goin' come along an' say: 'By Gar, I been lookin' for you long tarn. De new jodge at Dyea he tell me you murder a boy at Sheep Camp. S'pose you come wit' me an' do little hangin' yourse'f.' No, messieurs! We ain't Hinjuns; we're good sensible peoples, eh?"

A member of the committee, one who had hitherto acted a passive part, now stepped forward.

"Frenchy has put it right," he acknowledged. "We'll have courts in this country some day, and we'll have to answer to them. Miners' law is all right, so far as it goes, but I won't be a party to a murder. That's what this would be, murder. If you're going to talk hanging, you can take me off of your committee."

Lucky Broad uttered a yelp of encouragement. "Hangin' sounds better 'n it feels," he declared. "Think it over, you family men. When you make your stakes and go home, little Johnny's going to climb onto your knee and say, 'Papa, tell me why you hung that man at Sheep Camp,' and you'll say, 'Why, son, we hung him because he stole a sack of rice.' Like hell you will!"

'Poleon Doret regained public attention by saying, "Messieurs, I got s'prise for you." He lifted himself to his toes and called loudly over the heads of the assembled citizens, "Dis way, madame." From the direction he was looking there came a swiftly moving figure, the figure of a tall woman with straw-gold hair. Men gave way before her. She hurried straight to the tent platform, where 'Poleon leaned down, took her beneath her arms, and swung her lightly up beside him. "Madame de Countess Courteau," he announced; then with a flourish he swept off his knitted cap and bowed to the new-comer. To those beneath him he cried, sharply, "Tak' off dose hat or I knock dem off."

The Countess, too, had evidently made haste, for she was breathing deeply. She flashed a smile at Pierce Phillips, then said, so that all could hear:

"I understand you accuse this young man of stealing something last night. Well, he was in Linderman. He brought me over to-day."

"We don't care so much about the rice; this stealing has been going on for a long time," a bystander explained.

"True. But the rice was stolen last night, wasn't it? The man who stole it probably stole the other stuff."

"They're two to one," Pierce told her. "They're trying to saw it off on me."

The Countess turned and stared at the McCaskey brothers, who met her look defiantly. "Ban!" she exclaimed. "I haven't heard the evidence, for I was on my way to Dyea when Mr.—" She glanced inquiringly at 'Poleon.

He bowed again. "Doret," said he. "Napoleon Doret."

"—when Mr. Doret overtook me, but I'm willing to wager my life that this boy isn't a thief." Again she smiled at Phillips, and he experienced a tumult of conflicting emotions. Never had he seen a woman like this one, who radiated such strength, such confidence, such power. She stood there like a goddess, a splendid creature fashioned of snow and gold; she dominated the assembly. He was embarrassed that she should find him in this predicament, shamed that she should be forced to come to his assistance; nevertheless, he was thrilled at her ready response.

It was the elder McCaskey who next claimed attention. "We've made our spiel," he began; then he launched into a repetition of his former statement of facts.

The Countess stepped to Pierce's side, inquiring, quickly, "What is this, a joke?"

"I thought so at first, but it looks as if I'll be cutting figure eights on the end of a tent-rope."

"What makes them think you did the stealing?"

"The McCaskeys swear I did. You see, I had no outfit of my own—"

"Are you broke?"

"N—no! I wasn't yesterday. I am now." In a few sentences Pierce made known the facts of his recent loss, and pointed to Jim McCaskey's bandaged head.

When the elder brother had concluded, the Countess again addressed the meeting. "You men take it for granted that Phillips did the stealing because he needed grub," said she. "As a matter of fact he wasn't broke, he had a thousand dollars, and—"

"Say! Who hired you to argue this case?" It was Jim McCaskey speaking.
He had edged his way forward and was scowling darkly at the woman.
"What's the idea, anyhow? Are you stuck on this kid?"

The Countess Courteau eyed her interrogator coolly, her cheeks maintained their even coloring, her eyes were as icy blue as ever. It was plain that she was in no wise embarrassed by his insinuation.

Very quietly she said: "I'll tell you whether I am if you'll tell me who got his thousand dollars. Was it your brother?" Jim McCaskey recoiled; his face whitened. "Who hit you over the head?" the woman persisted. "Did he?"

"That's none of your business," Jim shouted. "I want to know what you're doing in this case. You say the kid was in Linderman last night. Well, I say—you're a—! How d'you know he was there? How d'you know he didn't steal that rice before he left, for that matter?"

"I know he was in Linderman because I was with him."

"With him? All night?" The speaker grinned insultingly.

"Yes, all night. I slept in the same tent with him and—"

"Now I've got your number," the younger McCaskey cried, in triumph.

"Bah!" The Countess shrugged unconcernedly. "As for the rice being stolen before he—"

"'Countess.' Ha!" Jim burst forth again. "Swell countess you are! The Dyea dance-halls are full of 'countesses' like you—counting percentage checks. Boys, who are you going to believe? She slept all night—"

McCaskey got no further, for with a cry of rage Pierce Phillips set his muscles and landed upon him. It was a mighty blow and it found lodgment upon the side of its victim's face.

Jim McCaskey went down and his assailant, maddened completely by the feel of his enemy's flesh, lunged forward to stamp him beneath his heels. But stout arms seized him, bodies intervened, and he was hurled backward. A shout arose; there was a general scramble for the raised platform. There were yells of:

"Shame!"

"Hang on to him!"

"Stretch him up!"

"Dirty ingrate!"

Phillips fought with desperation; his struggles caused the structure to creak and to strain; men piled over it and joined in the fight. He was whining and sobbing in his fury.

Meanwhile ready hands had rescued Jim from the trampling feet and now held his limp body erect.

It was the clarion call of the Countess Courteau which first made itself heard above the din. She had climbed to the railing and was poised there with one arm outflung, a quivering finger leveled at Jim McCaskey's head.

"Look!" she cried. "Look, men—AT HIS HEAD! There's proof that he's been lying!" The victim of the assault had lost his cap in the scuffle, and with it had gone the bandage. His head was bare now, and, oddly enough, it showed no matted hair, no cut, no bruise, no swelling. It was, in fact, a perfectly normal, healthy, well-preserved cranium.

Phillips ceased his struggles; he passed a shaking hand over his eyes to clear his vision; his captors released him and crowded closer to Jim McCaskey, who was now showing the first signs of returning consciousness.

"He told you he was held up—that his skull was cracked, didn't he?" The Countess threw back her head and laughed unrestrainedly. "My! But you men are fools! Now, then, who do you suppose got young Phillips' money? Use your wits, men."

There was a great craning of necks, a momentary hush, the while Jim McCaskey rolled his head loosely, opened his eyes, and stared wildly about.

The Countess bent down toward him, and now her cheeks had grown white, her blue eyes were flaming.

"Well, my man," she cried, in a shaking voice, "now you know what kind of a woman I am. 'Counting percentage checks,' eh?" She seemed upon the point of reaching out and throttling Jim with her long strong fingers. "Let's see you and your precious brother do a little counting. Count out a thousand dollars for this boy. Quick!"

It was 'Poleon Doret who searched the palsied victim. While other hands restrained the older brother he went through the younger one and, having done so, handed Pierce Phillips a bulky envelope addressed in the latter's handwriting.

"She's yours, eh?" 'Poleon inquired.

Phillips made a hasty examination, then nodded.

The Countess turned once more to the crowd. "I move that you apologize to Mr. Phillips. Are you game?" Her question met with a yell of approval. "Now, then, there's a new case on the docket, and the charge is highway robbery. Are you ready to vote a verdict?" Her face was set, her eyes still flashed.

"Guilty!" came with a roar.

"Very well. Hang the ruffians if you feel like it!"

She leaped down from her vantage-point, and without a word, without a glance behind her set out along the Dyea trail.

CHAPTER V

"Looked kind of salty for a spell, didn't it?" The grizzled leader of the posse, he who had effected the capture of the thieves, was speaking to Pierce. "Well, I'm due for a private apology. I hope you cherish no hard feelings. Eh?"

"None whatever, sir. I'm only too glad to get out whole and get my money back. It was quite an experience." Already Phillips' mind had ranged the events of the last crowded hour into some sort of order; his fancy had tinged them with a glamour already turning rosy with romance, and he told himself that his thrills had been worth their price.

"Lucky that woman showed up. Who is she?" Phillips shook his head. In his turn he inquired, "What are you going to do with the McCaskeys?"

The elder man's face hardened. "I don't know. This talk about hangin' makes me weary. I'd hang 'em; I'd kick a bar'l out from under either of 'em. I've done such things and I never had any bad dreams."

But it was plain that the sentiment favoring such extreme punishment had changed, for a suggestion was made to flog the thieves and send them out of the country. This met with instant response. A motion was put to administer forty lashes and it was carried with a whoop.

Preparations to execute the sentence were immediately instituted. A scourge was prepared by wiring nine heavy leather thongs to a whip-handle, the platform was cleared, and a call was issued for a man to administer the punishment. Some delay ensued at this point, but finally a burly fellow volunteered, climbed to the stage, and removed his canvas coat.

Since the younger McCaskey appeared to be still somewhat dazed from the rough handling he had suffered, his brother was thrust forward. The latter was stripped to the waist, his wrists were firmly bound, then trussed up to one of the stout end-poles of the tent-frame which, skeleton-like, stood over the platform. This done, the committee fell back, and the wielder of the whip stepped forward.

The crowd had watched these grim proceedings intently; it became quite silent now. The hour was growing late, the day had been overcast, and a damp chill that searched the marrow was settling as the short afternoon drew to a close. The prisoner's naked body showed very white beneath his shock of coal-black hair; his flesh seemed tender and the onlookers stared at it in fascination.

Joe McCaskey was a man of nerve; he held himself erect; there was defiance in the gaze which he leveled at the faces below him. But his brother Jim was not made of such stern, stuff—he was the meaner, the more cowardly of the pair—and these methodical preparations, the certainty of his own forthcoming ordeal, bred in him a desperate panic. The sight of his brother's flesh bared to the bite of the lash brought home to him the horrifying significance of a flogging, and then, as if to emphasize that significance, the executioner gave his cat-o'-nine-tails a practice swing. As the lashes hissed through the air the victim at the post stiffened rigidly, but his brother, outside the inclosure, writhed in his tracks and uttered a faint moan. Profiting by the inattention of his captors, Jim McCaskey summoned his strength and with an effort born of desperation wrenched himself free. Hands grasped at him as he bolted, bodies barred his way, but he bore them down; before the meaning of the commotion had dawned upon the crowd at large he had fought his way out and was speeding down the street. But fleet-footed men were at his heels, a roar of rage burst from the mob, and in a body it took up the chase. Down the stumpy, muddy trail went the pursuit, and every command to halt spurred the fleeing man to swifter flight. Cabin doors opened; people came running from their tents; some tried to fling themselves in the way of the escaping criminal; packers toiling up the trail heard the approaching clamor, shook off their burdens and endeavored to seize the figure that came bounding ahead of it. But Jim dodged them all. Failing in their attempt to intercept him, these newcomers joined the chase, and the fugitive, once the first frenzy of excitement had died in him, heard their footsteps gaining on him. He was stark mad by now; black terror throttled him. Then some one fired a shot; that shot was followed by others; there came a scattered fusillade, and with a mighty leap Jim McCaskey fell. He collapsed in midair; he was dead when his pursuers reached him.

Mob spirit is a peculiar thing; its vagaries are difficult to explain or to analyze. Some trivial occurrence may completely destroy its temper, or again merely serve to harden it and give it edge. In this instance the escape, the flight, the short, swift pursuit and its tragic ending, had the effect, not of sobering the assembled citizens of Sheep Camp, not of satisfying their long-slumbering rage, but of inflaming it, of intoxicating them to a state of insane triumph. Like the Paris mobs that followed shouting, in the wake of the tumbrels bound for the guillotine, these men came trooping back to the scene of execution, and as they came they bellowed hoarsely and they waved their arms.

Men react powerfully to environment; they put on rough ways with rough clothes. Smooth pavements, soap and hot water, safety-razors, are strong civilizing agents, but a man begins to revert in the time it takes his beard to grow. These fellows had left the world they knew behind them; they were in a world they knew not. Old standards had fallen, new standards had been reared, new values had attached to crime, therefore they demanded that the business in hand go on. Such was the spirit of the Chilkoot trail.

At the first stroke of the descending whip a howl went up—a merciless howl, a howl of fierce exultation. Joe McCaskey rocked forward upon the balls of his feet; his frame was racked by a spasm of agony; he strained at his thongs until his shoulder muscles swelled. The flesh of his back knotted and writhed; livid streaks leaped out upon it, then turned crimson and began to trickle blood.

"ONE!" roared the mob.

The wielder of the scourge swung his weapon again; again the leather strips wrapped around the victim's ribs and laid open their defenseless covering.

"TWO!"

McCaskey lunged forward, then strained, backward; the tent-frame creaked as he pulled at it. His head was drawn far back between his shoulders, his face was convulsed, and his gums were bared in a skyward grin. If he uttered any sound it was lost in the uproar.

"THREE!"

It was a frightful punishment. The man's flesh was being stripped from his bones.

"FOUR!"

"FIVE!"

The count went on monotonously, for the fellow with the whip swung slowly, putting his whole strength behind every blow. When it had climbed to eight the prisoner's body was dripping with blood, his trousers-band was sodden with it. When it had reached ten he hung suspended by his wrists and only a fierce involuntary muscular reaction answered the caress of the nine lashes.

Forty stripes had been voted as the penalty, but 'Poleon Doret vaulted to the platform, seized the upraised whip, and tore it from the executioner's hand. He turned upon the crowd a countenance white with fury and disgust.

"Enough!" he shouted. "By Gar! You keel him next! If you mus' w'ip somebody, w'ip me; dis feller is mos' dead." He strode to the post and with a slash of his hunting-knife cut McCaskey down. This action was greeted by an angry yell of protest; there was a rush toward the platform, but 'Poleon was joined by the leader of the posse, who scrambled through the press and ranged himself in opposition to the audience. The old man was likewise satiated with this torture; his face was wet with sweat; beneath his drooping gray mustache his teeth were set.

"Back up, you hyenas!" he cried, shrilly. "The show's over. The man took his medicine and he took it like a man. He's had enough."

"Gimme the whip. I'll finish the job," some one shouted.

The former speaker bent forward abristle with defiance.

"You try it!" he spat out. "You touch that whip, and by God, I'll kill you!" He lent point to this threat by drawing and cocking his six-shooter. "If you men ain't had enough blood for one day, I'll let a little more for you." His words ended in a torrent of profanity. "Climb aboard!" he shrilled. "Who's got the guts to try?"

Doret spoke to him shortly, "Dese men ain't goin' mak' no trouble, m'sieu'." With that he turned his back and, heedless of the clamor, began to minister to the bleeding man. He had provided himself with a bottle of lotion, doubtless some antiseptic snatched from the canvas drugstore down the street, and with this he wet a handkerchief; then he washed McCaskey's lacerated back. A member of the committee joined him in this work of mercy; soon others came to their assistance, and gradually the crowd began breaking up. Some one handed the sufferer a drink of whisky, which revived him considerably, and by the time he was ready to receive his upper garments he was to some extent master of himself.

Joe McCaskey accepted these attentions without a word of thanks, without a sign of gratitude. He appeared to be numbed, paralyzed, by the nervous shock he had undergone, and yet he was not paralyzed, for his eyes were intensely alive. They were wild, baleful; his roving glance was like poison to the men it fell upon.

"You're due to leave camp," he was told, "and you're going to take the first boat from Dyea. Is there anything you want to say, anything you want to do, before you go?"

"I—want something to—eat," Joe answered, hoarsely. "I'm hungry." These were the first words he had uttered; they met with astonishment; nevertheless he was led to the nearest restaurant. Surrounded by a silent, curious group, he crouched over the board counter and wolfed a ravenous meal. When he had finished he rose, turned, and stared questioningly at the circle of hostile faces; his eyes still glittered with that basilisk glare of hatred and defiance. There was something huge, disconcerting, about the man. Not once had he appealed for mercy, not once had he complained, not once had he asked about his brother; he showed neither curiosity nor concern over Jim's fate, and now he betrayed the utmost indifference to his own. He merely shifted that venomous stare from one face to another as if indelibly to photograph each and every one of them upon his mind.

But the citizens of Sheep Camp were not done with him yet. His hands were again bound, this time behind him; a blanket roll was roped upon his shoulders, upon his breast was hung a staring placard which read:

"I am a thief! Spit on me and send me along."

Thus decorated, he met his crowning indignity. Extending from the steps of the restaurant far down the street twin rows of men had formed, and this gauntlet Joe McCaskey was forced to run. He bore this ordeal as he had borne the other. Men jeered at him, they flung handfuls of wet moss and mud at him, they spat upon him, some even struck him, bound as he was.

Sickened at the sight, Pierce Phillips witnessed the final chapter of this tragedy into which the winds of chance had blown him. For one instant only did his eyes meet those of his former tentmate, but during that brief glance the latter made plain his undying hatred. McCaskey's gaze intensified, his upper lip drew back in a grimace similar to that which he had lifted to the sky when agony ran through his veins like fire; he seemed to concentrate the last ounce of his soul's energy in the sending of some wordless message. Hellish fury, a threat too baneful, too ominous, for expression dwelt in that stare; then a splatter of mire struck him in the face and blotted it out.

When the last jeer had died away, when the figure of Joe McCaskey had disappeared into the misty twilight, Phillips drew a deep breath. What a day this had been, what a tumult he had lived through, what an experience he had undergone! This was an adventure! He had lived, he had made an enemy. Life had come his way, and the consciousness of that fact caused him to tingle. This would be something to talk about; what would the folks back home say to this? And the Countess—that wonderful woman of ice and fire! That superwoman who could sway the minds of men, whose wit was quicker than light. Well, she had saved him, saved his good name, if not his neck, and his life was hers. Who was she? What mission brought her here? What hurry crowded on her heels? What idle chance had flung them into each other's arms? Or was it idle chance? Was there such a thing as chance, after all? Were not men's random fortunes all laid out in conformity with some obscure purpose to form a part of some intricate design? Dust he was, dust blown upon the breath of the North, as were these other human atoms which had been borne thither from the farthest quarters of the earth; but when that dust had settled would it not arrange itself into patterns mapped out at the hour of birth or long before? Somehow he believed that such would be the case.

As for the Countess, his way was hers, her way was his; he could not bear to think of losing her. She was big, she was great, she drew him by the spell of some strange magic.

The peppery old man who, with Doret's help, had defied the miners' meeting approached him to inquire:

"Say, why didn't old Tom come back with you from Linderman?"

"Old Tom?"

"Sure! Old Tom Linton. We're pardners. I'm Jerry Quirk."

"He was tired out."

"Tired!" Mr. Quirk snorted derisively. "What tired him? He can't tote enough grub to satisfy his own hunger. Me, I'm double-trippin'—relayin' our stuff to the Summit and breakin' my back at it. I can't make him understand we'd ought to keep the outfit together; he's got it scattered like a mad woman's hair. But old Tom's in the sere and yellow leaf: he's onnery, like all old men. I try to humor him, but—here's a limit." The speaker looked Pierce over shrewdly. "You said you was packin' for wages. Well, old Tom ain't any help to me. You look strong. Mebbe I could hire you."

Phillips shook his head. "I don't want work just now," said he. "I'm going to Dyea in the morning."

Jim McCaskey was buried where he had fallen, and there beside the trail, so that all who passed might read and ponder, the men of Sheep Camp raised a board with this inscription:

"Here lies the body of a thief."

CHAPTER VI

A certain romantic glamour attaches to all new countries, but not every man is responsive to it. To the person who finds enjoyment, preoccupation, in studying a ruin or in contemplating glories, triumphs, dramas long dead and gone, old buildings, old cities, and old worlds sound a resistless call. The past is peopled with impressive figures, to be sure; it is a tapestry into which are woven scenes of tremendous significance and events of the greatest moment, and it is quite natural, therefore, that the majority of people should experience greater fascination in studying it than in painting new scenes upon a naked canvas with colors of their own imagining. To them new countries are crude, uninteresting. But there is another type of mind which finds a more absorbing spell in the contemplation of things to come than of things long past; another temperament to which the proven and the tried possess a flat and tasteless flavor. They are restless, anticipative people; they are the ones who blaze trails. To them great cities, established order, the intricate structure of well-settled life, are both monotonous and oppressive; they do not thrive well thereunder. But put them out on the fringe of things, transplant them to wild soil, and the sap runs, they flower rankly.

To Pierce Phillips the new surroundings into which he had been projected were intensely stimulating; they excited him as he had never been excited, and each day he awoke to the sense of new adventures. Life, as he had known it, had always been good—and full, too, for that matter—and he had hugely enjoyed it; nevertheless, it had impressed upon him a sense of his own insignificance. He had been lost, submerged, in it. Here, on the threshold of a new world, he had begun to find himself, and the experience was delightful. By some magic he had been lifted to a common level with every other man, and no one had advantage over him. The momentous future was as much his as theirs and the God of Luck was in charge of things.

There was a fever in the very air he breathed, the food he ate, the water he drank. Life ran at a furious pace and it inspired in him supreme exhilaration to be swept along by it. Over all this new land was a purple haze of mystery—a sense of the Unknown right at hand. The Beyond was beckoning; it was as if great curtains had parted and he beheld vistas of tremendous promise. Keenest of all, perhaps, was his joy at discovering himself.

Appreciation of this miraculous rebirth was fullest when, at rare intervals, he came off the trail and back to Dyea, for then he renewed his touch with that other world, and the contrast became more evident.

Dyea throbbed nowadays beneath a mighty head of steam; it had grown surprisingly and it was intensely alive. Phillips never came back to it without an emotional thrill and a realization of great issues, great undertakings, in process of working out. The knowledge that he had a part in them aroused in him an intoxicating pleasure.

Dyea had become a metropolis of boards and canvas, of logs and corrugated iron. Stores had risen, there were hotels and lodging-houses, busy restaurants and busier saloons whence came the sounds of revelry by night and by day. It was a healthy revelry, by the way, like the boisterous hilarity of a robust boy. Dyea was just that—an overgrown, hilarious boy. There was nothing querulous or sickly about this child; it was strong, it was sturdy, it was rough; it romped with everybody and it grew out of its clothes overnight. Every house, every tent, in the town was crowded; supply never quite overtook demand.

Pack-animals were being imported, bridges were being built, the swamps were being hastily corduroyed; there was talk of a tramway up the side of the Chilkoot, but the gold rush increased daily, and, despite better means of transportation, the call for packers went unanswered and the price per pound stayed up. New tribes of Indians from down the coast had moved thither, babies and baggage, and they were growing rich. The stampede itself resembled the spring run of the silver salmon—it was equally mad, equally resistless. It was equally wasteful, too, for birds and beasts of prey fattened upon it and the outsetting current bore a burden of derelicts.

Values were extravagant; money ran like water; the town was wide open and it took toll from every new-comer. The ferment was kept active by a trickle of outgoing Klondikers, a considerable number of whom passed through on their way back to the States. These men had been educated to the liberal ways of the "inside" country and were prodigal spenders. The scent of the salt sea, the sight of new faces, the proximity of the open world, were like strong drink to them, hence they untied their mooseskin "pokes" and scattered the contents like sawdust. Their tales of the new El Dorado stimulated a similar recklessness among their hearers.

To a boy like Pierce Phillips, in whom the spirit of youth was a flaming torch, all this spelled glorious abandon, a supreme riot of Olympic emotions.

Precisely what reason he had for coming to town this morning he did not know; nevertheless, he was drawn seaward as by a mighty magnet. He told himself that ordinary gratitude demanded that he thank the Countess Courteau for her service to him, but as a matter of fact he was less interested in voicing his gratitude than in merely seeing her again. He was not sure but that she would resent his thanks; nevertheless, it was necessary to seek her out, for already her image was nebulous, and he could not piece together a satisfactory picture of her. She obsessed his thoughts, but his intense desire to fix her indelibly therein had defeated its purpose and had blurred the photograph. Who was she? What was she? Where was she going? What did she think of him? The possibility that she might leave Dyea before answering those questions spurred him into a gait that devoured the miles.

But when he turned into the main street of the town his haste vanished and a sudden embarrassment overtook him. What would he say to her, now that he was here? How would he excuse or explain his obvious pursuit? Would she see through him? If so, what light would kindle in those ice-blue eyes? The Countess was an unusual woman. She knew men, she read them clearly, and she knew how to freeze them in their tracks. Pierce felt quite sure that she would guess his motives, therefore he made up his mind to dissemble cunningly. He decided to assume a casual air and to let chance arrange their actual meeting. When he did encounter her, a quick smile of pleased surprise on his part, a few simple words of thanks, a manly statement that he was glad she had not left before his duties permitted him to look her up, and she would be completely deceived. Thereafter fate would decree how well or how badly they got acquainted. Yes, that was the way to go about it.

Having laid out this admirable program, he immediately defied it by making a bee-line for the main hotel, a big board structure still in process of erection. His feet carried him thither in spite of himself. Like a homing-pigeon he went, and instinct guided him unerringly, for he found the Countess Courteau in the office.

She was dressed as on the day before, but by some magic she had managed to freshen and to brighten herself. In her hand she held her traveling-bag; she was speaking to the proprietor as Pierce stepped up behind her.

"Fifteen thousand dollars as it stands," he heard her say. "That's my price. I'll make you a present of the lumber. The Queen leaves in twenty minutes."

The proprietor began to argue, but she cut him short: "That's my last word. Three hundred per cent, on your money."

"But—"

"Think it over!" Her tone was cool, her words were crisp. "I take the lighter in ten minutes." She turned to find Phillips at her shoulder.

"Good morning!" Her face lit up with a smile; she extended her hand, and he seized it as a fish swallows a bait. He blushed redly.

"I'm late," he stammered. "I mean I—I hurried right in to tell you—"

"So they didn't hang you?"

"No! You were wonderful! I couldn't rest until I had told you how deeply grateful—"

"Nonsense!" The Countess shrugged her shoulders. "I'm glad you came before I left."

"You're not—going away?" he queried, with frank apprehension.

"In ten minutes."

"See here!" It was the hotel proprietor who addressed the woman. "You can't possibly make it before snow flies, and the boats are overloaded coming north; they can't handle the freight they've got."

"I'll be back in three weeks," the Countess asserted, positively. "I'll bring my own pack-train. If something should delay me, I'll open up here and put you out of business. This town will be good for a year or two."

"You can't threaten me," the fellow blustered. "Twenty thousand is my price."

"Good-by!" The Countess turned once more to Pierce.

"Are you leaving for good?" he inquired, despondently, unable to dissemble.

"Bless you, no! I'll probably die in this country. I'm going out on business, but I'll be back in Dawson ahead of the ice. You'll be going across soon, I dare say. Come, walk down to the beach with me."

Together they left the building and found their way to the landing-place, where a lighter was taking on passengers for the steamship Queen.

"I suppose you know how sorry I am for what happened yesterday," Pierce began.

The Countess looked up from her abstracted contemplation of the scene; there was a faint inquiry in her face.

"Sorry? I should think you'd be about the happiest boy in Dyea."

"I mean what Jim McCaskey said. I'd have—killed him if I could. I tried to!"

"Oh!" The woman nodded; her teeth gleamed in a smile that was not at all pleasant. "I heard about the shooting this morning; I meant to ask you about it, but I was thinking of other things." She measured the burly frame of the young man at her side and the vindictiveness died out of her expression. Phillips was good to look at; he stood a full six feet in height, his close-cropped hair displayed a shapely head, and his features were well molded. He was a handsome, open lad, the Countess acknowledged. Aloud she said: "I dare say every woman loves to have a man fight for her. I do my own fighting, usually, but it's nice to have a champion." Her gaze wandered back to the hotel, then up the pine-flanked valley toward the Chilkoot; her abstraction returned; she appeared to weigh some intricate mathematical calculation.

With his hands in his pockets the hotel-keeper came idling down to the water's edge and, approaching his departing guest, said, carelessly:

"I've been thinking it over, ma'am. There isn't room for two of us here. I might make it seventeen thousand five hundred, if—"

"Fifteen! No more."

There came a signal from the steamer in the offing; the Countess extended her hand to Pierce.

"Good-by! If you're still here three weeks from now you may be able to help me." Then she joined the procession up the gang-plank.

But the hotel-keeper halted her. "Fifteen is a go!" he said, angrily.

The Countess Courteau stepped back out of the line. "Very well. Make out the bill of sale. I'll meet you at Healy & Wilson's in ten minutes."

A moment later she smiled at Pierce and heaved a sigh of relief.

"Well, I brought him to time, didn't I? I'd never have gone aboard. I'd have paid him twenty-five thousand dollars, as a matter of fact, but he hadn't sense enough to see it. I knew I had him when he followed me down here."

"What have you bought?"

"That hotel yonder—all but the lumber."

"All BUT the lumber! Why, there isn't much else!" Pierce was more than a little astonished.

"Oh yes, there is! Dishes, hardware, glass, beds, bedding, windows, fixtures—everything inside the building, that's what I bought. That's all I wanted. I'll have the place wrecked and the stuff packed up and on men's backs in two days. It cost—I don't know what it cost, and I don't care. The fellow was perfectly right, though; I haven't time to get to Seattle and back again. Know any men who want work?"

"I want it."

"Know any others?" Pierce shook his head. "Find some—the more the better. Carpenters first, if there are any." The speaker was all business now. "You're working for me from this minute, understand? Treat me right and I'll treat you right. I'll take you through to Dawson. I want carpenters, packers, boatmen; they must work fast. Long hours, long chances, big pay, that's what it will mean. That outfit must be in Dawson ahead of the ice. Such a thing has never been done; it can't be done! But I'll do it! Do you want to tackle the job?"

Phillips' eyes were dancing. "I'll eat it up!" he cried, breathlessly.

"Good! I think you'll do. Wait for me at the hotel." With a brisk nod she was off, leaving him in a perfect whirl of emotions.

Her man! She had called him that. "Fast work, long hours, long chances"; an impossible task! What happy impulse had sped him to town this morning? Ten minutes was the narrow margin by which he had won his opportunity, and now the door to the North had opened at a woman's touch. Inside lay—everything! She thought he'd do? Why, she must KNOW he'd do. She must know he'd give up his life for her!

He pinched himself to ascertain if he were dreaming.

The Northern Hotel was less than three-quarters built, but within an hour after it had changed ownership it was in process of demolition. The Countess Courteau was indeed a "lightning striker"; while Phillips went through the streets offering double wages to men who could wield hammer and saw, and the possibility of transportation clear to Dawson for those who could handle an oar, she called off the building crew and set them to new tasks, then she cleared the house of its guests. Rooms were invaded with peremptory orders to vacate; the steady help was put to undoing what they had already done, and soon the premises were in tumult. Such rooms as had been completed were dismantled even while the protesting occupants were yet gathering their belongings together, Beds were knocked down, bedding was moved out; windows, door-knobs, hinges, fixtures were removed; dishes, lamps, mirrors, glassware were assembled for packing.

Through all this din and clatter the Countess Courteau passed, spurring the wreckers on to speed. Yielding to Phillips' knowledge of transportation problems and limitations, she put him in general charge, and before he realized it he found that he was in reality her first lieutenant.

Toward evening a ship arrived and began to belch forth freight and passengers, whereupon there ensued a rush to find shelter.

Pierce was engaged in dismantling the office fixtures when a stranger entered and accosted him with the inquiry:

"Got any rooms?"

"No, sir. We're moving this hotel bodily to Dawson."

The new-comer surveyed the littered premises with some curiosity. He was a tall, gray-haired man, with a long, impassive face of peculiar ashen color. He had lost his left hand somewhere above the wrist and in place of it wore a metal hook. With this he gestured stiffly in the direction of a girl who had followed him into the building.

"She's got to have a bed," he declared. "I can get along somehow till my stuff is landed to-morrow."

"I'm sorry," Pierce told him, "but the beds are all down and the windows are out. I'm afraid nobody could get much sleep here, for we'll be at work all night."

"Any other hotels?"

"Some bunk-houses. But they're pretty full."

"Money no object, I suppose?" the one-armed man ventured.

"Oh, none."

The stranger turned to his companion. "Looks like we'd have to sit up till our tents come off. I hope they've got chairs in this town."

"We can stay aboard the ship." The girl had a pleasant voice—she was, in fact, a pleasant sight to look upon, for her face was quiet and dignified, her eyes were level and gray, she wore a head of wavy chestnut hair combed neatly back beneath a trim hat.

Alaska, during the first rush, was a land of pretty women, owing to the fact that a large proportion of those who came North did so for the avowed purpose of trading upon that capital, but even in such company this girl was noticeable and Pierce Phillips regarded her with distinct approval.

"You can have my part of that," the man told her, with a slight grimace. "This racket is music, to the bellow of those steers. And it smells better here. If I go aboard again I'll be hog-tied. Why, I'd rather sit up all night and deal casino to a mad Chinaman!"

"We'll manage somehow, dad." The girl turned to the door and her father followed her. He paused for a moment while he ran his eye up and down the busy street.

"Looks like old times, doesn't it, Letty?" Then he stepped out of sight.

When darkness came the wrecking crew worked on by the light of lamps, lanterns, and candles, for the inducement of double pay was potent.

Along about midnight Mr. Lucky Broad, the shell-man, picked his way through the bales and bundles and, recognizing Phillips, greeted him familiarly:

"Hello, kid! Where's her nibs, the corn-tassel Countess?"

"Gone to supper."

"Well, she sprung you, didn't she? Some gal! I knew you was all right, but them boys was certainly roily."

Pierce addressed the fellow frankly: "I'm obliged to you for taking my part. I hardly expected it."

"Why not? I got nothing against you. I got a sort of tenderness for guys like you—I hate to see 'em destroyed." Mr. Broad grinned widely and his former victim responded in like manner.

"I don't blame you," said the latter. "I was an awful knot-head, but you taught me a lesson."

"Pshaw!" The confidence-man shrugged his shoulders carelessly. "The best of 'em fall for the shells. I was up against it and had to get some rough money, but—it's a hard way to make a living. These pilgrims squawk so loud it isn't safe—you'd think their coin was soldered onto 'em. That's why I'm here. I understand her Grace is hiring men to go to Dawson."

"Yes."

"Well, take a flash at me." Mr. Broad stiffened his back, arched his chest, and revolved slowly upon his heels. "Pretty nifty, eh? What kind of men does she want?"

"Packers, boatmen—principally boatmen—fellows who can run white water."

The new applicant was undoubtedly in a happy and confident mood, for he rolled his eyes upward, exclaiming, devoutly: "I'm a gift from heaven! Born in a batteau and cradled on the waves—that's me!"

The Countess herself appeared out of the night at this moment and Pierce somewhat reluctantly introduced the sharper to her. "Here's an able seaman in search of a job," said he.

"Able seaman?" The woman raised her brows inquiringly.

"He said it." Mr. Broad nodded affirmatively. "I'm a jolly tar, a bo'sun's mate, a salt-horse wrangler. I just jumped a full-rigged ship—thimble-rigged!" He winked at Phillips and thrust his tongue into his cheek. "Here's my papers." From his shirt pocket he took a book of brown rice-papers and a sack of tobacco, then deftly fashioned a tiny cigarette.

"Roll one for me," said the Countess.

"Why, sure!" Mr. Broad obliged instantly and with a flourish.

"Are you really a boatman?" the woman inquired. "Don't stall, for I'll find you out." Pierce undertook to get her eye, but she was regarding Broad intently and did not see his signal.

"I'm all of that," the latter said, seriously.

"I'm going to move this outfit in small boats, two men to a boat, double crews through the canon and in swift water. Can you get a good man to help you?"

"He's yours for the askin'—Kid Bridges. Ain't his name enough? He's a good packer, too; been packin' hay for two months. Pierce knows him." Again Mr. Broad winked meaningly at Phillips.

"Come and see me to-morrow," said the Countess.

Lucky nodded agreement to this arrangement. "Why don't you load the whole works on a scow?" he asked. "You'd save men and we could all be together—happy family stuff. That's what Kirby's going to do."

"Kirby?"

"Sam Kirby. 'One-armed' Kirby—you know. He got in to-day with a big liquor outfit. Him and his gal are down at the Ophir now, playing faro."

"No scow for mine," the Countess said, positively. "I know what I'm doing."

After the visitor had gone Pierce spoke his mind, albeit with some hesitancy. "That fellow is a gambler," said he, "and Kid Bridges is another. Bridges held my hand for a minute, the day I landed, and his little display of tenderness cost me one hundred and thirty-five dollars. Do you think you want to hire them?"

"Why not?" the Countess inquired. Then, with a smile, "They won't hold my hand, and they may be very good boatmen indeed." She dropped her cigarette, stepped upon it, then resumed her labors.

Phillips eyed the burnt-offering with disfavor. Until just now he had not known that his employer used tobacco, and the discovery came as a shock. He had been reared in a close home-circle, therefore he did not approve of women smoking; in particular he disapproved of the Countess, his Countess, smoking. After a moment of consideration, however, he asked himself what good reason there could be for his feeling. It was her own affair; why shouldn't a woman smoke if she felt like it? He was surprised at the unexpected liberality of his attitude. This country was indeed working a change in him; he was broadening rapidly. As a matter of fact, he assured himself, the Countess Courteau was an exceptional woman; she was quite different from the other members of her sex and the rules of decorum which obtained for them did not obtain for her. She was one in ten thousand, one in a million. Yes, and he was "her man."

While he was snatching a bit of midnight supper Pierce again heard the name of Kirby mentioned, and a reference to the big game in progress at the Ophir. Recalling Lucky Broad's words, he wondered if it were possible that Kirby and his girl were indeed the father and daughter who had applied at the Northern for shelter. It seemed incredible that a young woman of such apparent refinement could be a gambler's daughter, but if it were true she was not only the daughter of a "sporting man," but a very notorious one, judging from general comment. Prompted by curiosity, Pierce dropped in at the Ophir on his way back to work. He found the place crowded, as usual, but especially so at the rear, where the games were running. When he had edged his way close enough to command a view of the faro-table he discovered that Sam Kirby was, for a fact, the one-armed man he had met during the afternoon. He was seated, and close at his back was the gray-eyed, brown-haired girl with the pleasant voice. She was taking no active part in the game itself except to watch the wagers and the cases carefully. Now and then her father addressed a low-spoken word to her and she answered with a nod, a smile, or a shake of her head. She was quite at ease, quite at home; she was utterly oblivious to the close-packed ring of spectators encircling the table.

The sight amazed Phillips. He was shocked; he was mildly angered and mildly amused at the false impression this young woman had given. It seemed that his judgment of female types was exceedingly poor.

"Who is Mr. Kirby?" he inquired of his nearest neighbor.

"Big sport. He's rich—or he was; I heard he just lost a string of race-horses. He makes a fortune and he spends it overnight. He's on his way 'inside' now with a big saloon outfit. That's Letty, his girl."

Another man laughed under his breath, saying: "Old Sam won't bet a nickel unless she's with him. He's superstitious."

"I guess he has reason to be. She's his rudder," the first speaker explained.

Mr. Kirby rapped sharply upon the table with the steel hook that served as his left hand, then, when a waiter cleared a passageway through the crowd, he mutely invited the house employees to drink. The dealer declined, the lookout and the case-keeper ordered whisky, and Kirby signified by a nod that the same would do for him. But his daughter laid a hand upon his arm. He argued with her briefly, then he shrugged and changed his order.

"Make it a cigar," he said, with a smile. "Boss's orders."

There was a ripple of laughter.

"Sam's a bad actor when he's drinking," one of Pierce's informants told him. "Letty keeps him pretty straight, but once in a while he gets away. When he does—oh, BOY!"

Long after he had returned to his tasks the memory of that still-faced girl in the foul, tobacco-laden atmosphere of the gambling-hall remained to bother Pierce Phillips; he could not get over his amazement and his annoyance at mistaking her for a—well, for a good girl.

Early in the morning, when he wearily went forth in quest of breakfast and a bed, he learned that the game at the Ophir was still going on.

"I want you to hire enough packers to take this stuff over in one trip—two at the most. Engage all you can. Offer any price." The Countess was speaking. She had snatched a few hours' sleep and was now back at the hotel as fresh as ever.

"You must take more rest," Pierce told her. "You'll wear yourself out at this rate."

She smiled brightly and shook her head, but he persisted. "Go back to sleep and let me attend to the work. I'm strong; nothing tires me."

"Nor me. I'll rest when we get to Dawson. Have those packers here day after to-morrow morning."

There were numerous freighters in Dyea, outfits with animals, too, some of them, but inquiry developed the fact that none were free to accept a contract of this size at such short notice, therefore Pierce went to the Indian village and asked for the chief. Failing to discover the old man, he began a tent-to-tent search, and while so engaged he stumbled upon Joe McCaskey.

The outcast was lying on a bed of boughs; his face was flushed and his eyes were bright with fever. Evidently, in avoiding the town he had sought shelter here and the natives had taken him in without question.

Overcoming his first impulse to quietly withdraw, Pierce bent down to the fellow and said, with genuine pity: "I'm sorry for you, Joe. Is there anything I can do?"

McCaskey stared up at him wildly; then a light of recognition kindled in his black eyes. It changed to that baleful gleam of hatred. His hair lay low upon his forehead and through it he glared. His face was covered with a smut of beard which made him even more repellent.

"I thought you were Jim," he croaked. "But Jim's—dead."

"You're sick. Can I help you? Do you want money or—"

"Jim's dead," the man repeated. "You killed him!"

"I? Nonsense. Don't talk—"

"You killed him. YOU!" McCaskey's unblinking stare became positively venomous; he showed his teeth in a frightful grin. "You killed him. But there's more of us. Plenty more. We'll get you." He appeared to derive a ferocious enjoyment from this threat, for he dwelt upon it. He began to curse his visitor so foully that Pierce backed out of the tent and let the flap fall. It had been an unwelcome encounter; it left an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

As he went on in search of the village shaman he heard Joe muttering:
"Jim's dead! Dead! Jim's dead!"

CHAPTER VII

Sam Kirby's outfit was one of the largest, one of the costliest, and one of the most complete that had ever been landed on the Dyea beach, for Kirby was a man who did things in a large way. He was a plunger; he had long since become case-hardened to risks and he knew how to weigh probabilities; hence the fact that he had staked his all upon one throw did not in the least disturb him. Many a time he had done the same and the dice had never failed to come out for him. Possessing a wide practical knowledge of new countries, he had shrewdly estimated the Klondike discovery at its true worth and had realized that the opportunity for a crowning triumph, a final clean-up, had come his way. This accounted for the energetic manner in which he had set about improving it.

Most men are successful in direct proportion to their ability to select and retain capable assistants. Fortune had favored Sam Kirby by presenting him with a daughter whose caution and good sense admirably supplemented his own best qualities, and he was doubly blessed in possessing the intense, nay, the ferocious, loyalty of one Danny Royal, a dependable retainer who had graduated from various minor positions into a sort of castellan, an Admirable Crichton, a good left hand to replace that missing member which Kirby had lost during the white-hot climax of a certain celebrated feud—a feud, by the way, which had added a notch to the ivory handle of Sam's famous six-shooter. This Danny Royal was all things. He could take any shift in a gambling-house, he was an accomplished fixer, he had been a jockey and had handled the Kirby string of horses. He was a miner of sorts, too, having superintended the Rouletta Mine during its brief and prosperous history; as a trainer he was without a peer. He had made book on many tracks; he it was who had brought out the filly Rouletta, Sam Kirby's best-known thoroughbred, and "mopped up" with her. Both mine and mare Danny had named after Kirby's girl, and under Danny's management both had been quick producers. All in all, Royal was considered by those who knew him best as a master of many trades and a Jack of none. He was an irreligious man, but he possessed a code which he lived up to strictly; epitomized it ran as follows, "Sam Kirby's will be done!" He believed in but one god, and that Rouletta Kirby was his profit.

Equipped with the allegiance of such a man as Royal, together with several tons of high-proof spirits, a stock of case-goods and cigars, some gambling paraphernalia, and a moderate bank roll with which to furnish the same, old Sam felt safe in setting out for any country where gold was mined and where the trails were new.

Of course he took his daughter with him. Sooner than leave her behind he would have severed his remaining hand. Rouletta and Agnes, they constituted the foundation upon which the Kirby fortunes rested, they were the rocks to which Sam clung, they were his assets and his liabilities, his adjuncts and his adornments. Agnes was his gun.

Having seen his freight safely ashore, Kirby left Royal in charge of it, first impressing upon him certain comprehensive and explicit instructions; then he and Rouletta and Agnes went up the trail and over the Chilkoot. Somehow, between the three of them, they intended to have a scow built and ready when Danny landed the last pound of merchandise at Linderman.

Mr. Royal was an energetic little person. He began an immediate hunt for packers, only to discover that another outfit was ahead of his and that no men were immediately available. He was resourceful, he was in the habit of meeting and overcoming obstacles, hence this one did not greatly trouble him, once he became acquainted with the situation.

Two days and nights enabled the Countess Courteau to strip the Northern Hotel, to assemble the movable appurtenances thereto, and to pack them into boxes, bales, and bundles, none of which weighed more than one hundred pounds. This lapse of time likewise enabled the Indians whom Pierce had hired to finish their contracts and return to the coast. In spite of the appalling amount of freight, Pierce believed he had enough men to move it in two trips, and when the hour came to start the Countess complimented him upon his thorough preparations. As swiftly as might be he formed his packers in line, weighed their burdens, and sent them on their journey. These preparations occasioned much confusion and a considerable crowd assembled. Among the onlookers was a bright-eyed, weazened little man who attached himself to the chief and engaged him in conversation.

When the last burden-bearer had departed the Countess directed Lucky Broad and Kid Bridges to stay in the hotel and stand guard over the remainder of her goods.

"Take six-hour shifts," she told them. "I'll hold you responsible for what's here."

"It's as safe as wheat," Broad assured her.

"I'll camp at the Scales with the stuff that has gone forward, and
Pierce will bring the Indians back."

"D'you think you can ride herd on it?" Bridges inquired. "I understand there's a lawless element at large."

The Countess smiled. "I'm sort of a lawless element myself when I start," she said. Her eyes twinkled as she measured Mr. Bridges' burly proportions. "You're going to miss your alfalfa bed before I get you to Linderman."

The Kid nodded seriously. "I know," said he. "Serves me right for quittin' a profession for a trade, but I got to look over this Dawson place. They say it's soft pickin'. Lucky is taking his stock in trade along, all three of 'em, so maybe we'll tear off a penny or two on the way."

Pierce's pack consisted of a tent for the Countess, some bedding, and food; with this on his back he and his employer set out to overtake their train. This they accomplished a short distance below the first crossing of the river. Already the white packers, of whom there were perhaps a score, had drawn together; the Indians were following them in a long file. Having seen his companion safely across the stream, Pierce asked her, somewhat doubtfully:

"Do you think Broad and his partner are altogether trustworthy?"

"Nobody is that," she told him. "But they're at least intelligent. In this kind of a country I prefer an intelligent crook to an honest fool. Most people are honest or dishonest when and as they think it is to their advantage to be so. Those men want to get to Dawson, and they know the Police would never let them across the Line. I'm their only chance. They'll stand assay."

It was mid-forenoon when the Countess halted Pierce, who was a short distance ahead of her, saying: "Wait! Didn't you hear somebody calling us?"

They listened. They were about to move onward when there came a faint hallo, and far down the trail behind them they saw a figure approaching. After a moment of scrutiny Pierce declared:

"Why, it's Broad!"

"Something has happened!" The Countess stepped upon a fallen log and through her cupped palms sent forth an answering call. Mr. Broad waved his hat and broke into a run. He was wet with sweat, he was muddy and out of breath, when he finally overtook them.

"Whew!" he panted. "Thought I'd never run you down … Well, set yourselves."

"What's wrong?" demanded the woman.

"Plenty. You've been double-crossed, whip-sawed. Your noble red men have quit you; they dumped your stuff at the river and made a deal at double rates to move Sam Kirby's freight. They're back in Dyea now, the whole works."

The Countess Courteau exploded with a man's oath. Her face was purple; her eyes were blazing.

"Danny Royal, Kirby's man, done it. Sam's gone on to Linderman to build a boat. I saw Danny curled up on the chief's ear while you were loading. After you'd gone him and the old pirate followed. Me 'n' Bridges never thought anything about it until by and by back came the whole party, empty. Danny trooped 'em down to the beach and begun packin' 'em. I know him, so I asked him what the devil. 'Hands off!' says he. 'Sam Kirby's got a rush order in ahead of yours, and these refreshments is going through by express. I've raised your ante. Money no object, understand? I'll boost the price again if I have to, and keep on boosting it.' Then he warned me not to start anything or he'd tack two letters onto the front of my name. He'd do it, too. I took it on the run, and here I am."

"Sam Kirby, eh?" The Countess' flaming rage had given place to a cool, calculating anger.

Pierce protested violently. "I hired those Indians. We agreed on a price and everything was settled."

"Well, Danny unsettled it. They're workin' for him and he intends to keep 'em."

"What about our white packers?" the woman inquired of Broad.

"They must have crossed before Danny caught up, or he'd have had them, too. 'Money no object,' he said. I'm danged if I'd turn a trick like that."

"Where's our stuff?"

"At the Crossing."

The Countess turned back down the trail and Pierce followed her. "I'll settle this Royal," he declared, furiously.

"Danny's a bad boy," Lucky Broad warned, falling into step. "If old Sam told him to hold a buzz-saw in his lap he'd do it. Maybe there wouldn't be much left of Danny, but he'd of hugged it some while he lasted."

Little more was said during the swift return to the river. It was not a pleasant journey, for the trail was miserable, the mud was deep, and there was a steady upward flow of traffic which it was necessary to stem. There were occasional interruptions to this stream, for here and there horses were down and a blockade had resulted. Behind it men lay propped against logs or tree-trunks, resting their tired frames and listening apathetically to the profanity of the horse-owners. Rarely did any one offer to lend a helping hand, for each man's task was equal to his strength. In one place a line of steers stood belly deep in the mire, waiting the command to plow forward.

Broken carts, abandoned vehicles of various patterns, lined the way; there were many swollen carcasses underfoot, and not infrequently pedestrians crossed mud-holes by stepping from one to another, holding their breaths and battling through swarms of flies. Much costly impedimenta strewed the roadside—each article a milestone of despair, a monument to failure. There were stoves, camp furniture, lumber, hardware, boat fittings. The wreckage and the wastage of the stampede were enormous, and every ounce, every dollar's worth of it, spoke mutely of blasted hopes. Now and then one saw piles of provisions, some of which had been entirely abandoned. The rains had ruined most of them.

When the Countess came to her freight she paused. "You said Royal was loading his men when you left?" She faced Broad inquiringly.

"Right!"

"Then he'll soon be along. We'll wait here." Of Phillips she asked, "Do you carry a gun?"

Pierce shook his head. "What are you going to do?" He could see that she was boiling inwardly, and although his own anger had increased at every moment during the return journey, her question caused him genuine apprehension.

Avoiding a direct answer, the woman said: "If Royal is with the
Indians, you keep your eye on him. I want to talk to them."

"Don't inaugurate any violent measures," Mr. Broad cautioned, nervously. "Danny's a sudden sort of a murderer. Of course, if worse comes to worst, I'll stick, but—my rating in the community ain't A 1. There's a lot of narrow-minded church members would like to baptize me at high tide. As if that would get their money back!"

A suggestion of a smile crept to the Countess' lips and she said, "I knew you'd stick when I hired you." Then she seated herself upon a box.

Danny Royal did accompany his packers. He did so as a precaution against precisely such a coup as he himself had engineered, and in order to be doubly secure he brought the head Indian with him. The old tribesman had rebelled mildly, but Royal had been firm, and in consequence they were the first two to appear when the procession came out of the woods.

The chief halted at sight of Phillips, the man who had hired him and his people, but at a word from Royal he resumed his march. He averted his eyes, however, and he held his head low, showing that this encounter was not at all to his liking. Royal, on the contrary, carried off the meeting easily. He grinned at Lucky Broad and was about to pass on when the Countess Courteau rose to her feet and stepped into the trail.

"Just a minute!" she said. Of Royal's companion she sternly demanded,
"What do you mean by this trick?"

The old redskin shot her a swift glance; then his face became expressionless and he gazed stolidly at the river.

"What do you mean?" the woman repeated, in a voice quivering with fury.

"Him people—" the chief began, but Royal spoke for him. Removing his hat, he made a stiff little bow, then said, courteously enough:

"I'm sorry to hold you up, ma'am, but—"

"You're not holding me up; I'm holding you up," the woman broke in. "What do you take me for, anyhow?" She stared at the white man so coldly, there was such authority and such fixity of purpose in her tone and her expression, that his manner changed.

"I'm on orders," said he. "There's no use to argue. I'd talk plainer to you if you was a man."

But she had turned her eyes to the chief again. "You lying scoundrel!" she cried, accusingly. "I made a straight deal with you and your people and I agreed to your price. I'm not going to let you throw me down!"

The wooden-faced object of her attack became inexplicably stupid; he strove for words. "Me no speak good," he muttered. "Me no savvy—"

"Perhaps you'll savvy this." As the Countess spoke she took from her pocket a short-barreled revolver, which she cocked and presented in a capable and determined manner so close to the old native's face that he staggered backward, fending off the attack. The woman followed him.

"Look here!" Danny Royal exploded. He made a movement with his right hand, but Pierce Phillips and Lucky Broad stepped close to him. The former said, shortly:

"If you make a move I'll brain you!"

"That's me," seconded Mr. Broad. "Lift a finger, Danny, and we go to the mat."

Royal regarded the two men searchingly. "D'you think I'll let you people stick me up?" he queried.

"You're stuck up!" the Countess declared, shortly. "Make sure of this—I'm not bluffing. I'll shoot. Here—you!" she called to one of the packers at the rear of the line who had turned and was making off. "Get back where you were and stay there." She emphasized this command with a wave of her weapon and the Indian obeyed with alacrity. "Now then, Mr. Royal, not one pound of Sam Kirby's freight will these people carry until mine is over the pass. I don't recognize you in this deal in any way. I made a bargain with the chief and I'll settle it with him. You keep out. If you don't, my men will attend to you."

It was surprising what a potent effect a firearm had upon the aged shaman. His mask fell off and his knowledge of the English language was magically refreshed. He began a perfectly intelligible protest against the promiscuous display of loaded weapons, particularly in crowded localities. He was a peaceful man, the head of a peaceful people, and violence of any sort was contrary to his and their code. "This was no way in which to settle a dispute—"

"You think not, eh? Well, it's my way," stormed the Countess. "I'll drop the first man who tries to pass. If you think I won't, try me. Go ahead, try me!" Mr. Royal undertook to say something more, but without turning her head the woman told Phillips, "Knock him down if he opens his mouth."

"WILL I?" Pierce edged closer to his man, and in his face there was a hunger for combat which did not look promising to the object of his attentions.

Lucky Broad likewise discouraged the ex-jockey by saying, "If you call her hand, Danny, I'll bust you where you're biggest."

The Countess still held the muzzle of her revolver close to the chief's body. Now she said, peremptorily: "You're going to end this joke right now. Order their packs off, QUICK!"

This colloquy had been short, but, brief as the delay had been, it had afforded time for newcomers to arrive. Amazed at the sight of a raging woman holding an army of red men at bay, several "mushers" dropped their burdens and came running forward to learn the meaning of it. The Countess explained rapidly, whereupon one exclaimed:

"Go to it, sister!"

Another agreed heartily. "When you shoot, shoot low. We'll see you through."

"I don't need any assistance," she told them. "They'll keep their agreement or they'll lose their head man. Give the word, Chief."

The old redskin raised his voice in expostulation, but one of the late-comers broke in upon him:

"Aw, shut up, you robber! You're gettin' what you need."

"I'm going to count three," the woman said, inflexibly. Her face had grown very white; her eyes were shining dangerously. "At four I shoot. One! Two—!"

The wrinkled Indian gave a sign; his tribesmen began to divest themselves of their loads.

"Pile it all up beside the trail. Now get under my stuff and don't let's have any more nonsense. The old price goes and I sha'n't raise it a penny." Turning to Danny Royal, she told him: "You could have put this over on a man, but women haven't any sense. I haven't a bit. Every cent I own is tied up in this freight and it's going through on time. I think a lot of it, and if you try to delay it again I'm just foolish enough to blow a hole in this savage—and you, too. Yes, and a miners' meeting would cheer me for doing it."

There was a silence; then Mr. Royal inquired: "Are you waiting for me to speak? Well, all I've got to say is if the James boys had had a sister they'd of been at work yet. I don't know how to tackle a woman."

"Are you going to keep hands off?"

"Sure! I'm licked. You went about it in the right way. You got me tied."

"I don't know whether you're lying or not. But just to make sure I'm going to have Lucky walk back to town with you to see that you don't get turned around."

Danny removed his hat and made a sweeping bow; then he departed in company with his escort. The Indians took up those burdens which they had originally shouldered, and the march to the Chilkoot was resumed. Now, however, the Countess Courteau brought up the rear of the procession and immediately in advance of her walked the head man of the Dyea tribe.

CHAPTER VIII

It was a still, clear morning, but autumn was in the air and a pale sun lacked the necessary heat to melt a skin of ice which, during the night, had covered stagnant pools. The damp moss which carpets northern forests was hoary with frost and it crackled underfoot. Winter was near and its unmistakable approach could be plainly felt.

A saw-pit had been rigged upon a sloping hillside—it consisted of four posts about six feet long upon which had been laid four stringers, like the sills of a house; up to this scaffold led a pair of inclined skids. Resting upon the stringers was a sizable spruce log which had been squared and marked with parallel chalk-lines and into which a whip-saw had eaten for several feet. Balanced upon this log was Tom Linton; in the sawdust directly under him stood Jerry Quirk. Mr. Linton glared downward, Mr. Quirk squinted fiercely upward. Mr. Linton showed his teeth in an ugly grin and his voice was hoarse with fury; Mr. Quirk's gray mustache bristled with rage, and anger had raised his conversational tone to a high pitch. Both men were perspiring, both were shaken to the core.

"DON'T SHOVE!" Mr. Quirk exclaimed, in shrill irritation. "How many times d'you want me to tell you not to shove? You bend the infernal thing."

"I never shoved," Linton said, thickly. "Maybe we'd do better if you'd quit hanging your weight on those handles every time I lift. If you've got to chin yourself, take a limb—or I'll build you a trapeze. You pull down, then lemme lift—"

Mr. Quirk danced with fury. "Chin myself? Shucks! You're petered out, that's what ails you. You 'ain't got the grit and you've throwed up your tail. Lift her clean—don't try to saw goin' up, the teeth ain't set that way. Lift, take a bite, then leggo. Lift, bite, leggo. Lift, bite—"

"Don't say that again!" shouted Linton. "I'm a patient man, but—" He swallowed hard, then with difficulty voiced a solemn, vibrant warning, "Don't say it again, that's all!"

Defiance instantly flamed in Jerry's watery eyes. "I'll say it if I want to!" he yelled. "I'll say anything I feel like sayin'! Some folks can't understand English; some folks have got lignumvity heads and you have to tell 'em—"

"You couldn't tell me anything!"

"Sure! That's just the trouble with you—NOBODY can tell you anything!"

"I whip-sawed before you was born!"

Astonishment momentarily robbed Mr. Quirk of speech, then he broke out more indignantly than ever. "Why, you lyin' horse-thief, you never heard of a whip-saw till we bought our outfit. You was for tying one end to a limb and the other end to a root and then rubbin' the log up and down it."

"I never meant that. I was fooling and you know it. That's just like you, to—"

"Say, if you'd ever had holt of a whip-saw in all your useless life, the man on the other end of it would have belted you with the handle and buried you in the sawdust. I'd ought to, but I 'ain't got the heart!" The speaker spat on his hands and in a calmer, more business-like tone said: "Well, come on. Let's go. This is our last board."

Tom Linton checked an insulting remark that had just occurred to him. It had nothing whatever to do with the subject under dispute, but it would have goaded Jerry to insanity, therefore it clamored for expression and the temptation to hurl it forth was almost irresistible. Linton, however, prided himself upon his self-restraint, and accordingly he swallowed his words. He clicked his teeth, he gritted them—he would have enjoyed sinking them into his partner's throat, as a matter of fact—then he growled, "Let her whiz!"

In unison the men resumed their interrupted labors; slowly, rhythmically, their arms moved up and down, monotonously their aching backs bent and straightened, inch by inch the saw blade ate along the penciled line. It was killing work, for it called into play unused, under-developed muscles, yes, muscles which did not and never would or could exist. Each time Linton lifted the saw it grew heavier by the fraction of a pound. Whenever Quirk looked up to note progress his eyes were filled with stinging particles of sawdust. His was a tearful job: sawdust was in his hair, his beard, it had sifted down inside his neckband and it itched his moist body. It had worked into his underclothes and he could not escape it even at night in his bed. He had of late acquired the habit of repeating over and over, with a pertinacity intensely irritating to his partner, that he could taste sawdust in his food—a statement manifestly false and well calculated to offend a camp cook.

After they had sawed for a while Jerry cried: "Hey! She's runnin' out again." He accompanied this remark by an abrupt cessation of effort. As a result the saw stopped in its downward course and Tom's chin came into violent contact with the upper handle.

The man above uttered a cry of pain and fury; he clapped a hand to his face as if to catch and save his teeth.

Jerry giggled with a shameless lack of feeling. "Spit 'em out," he cackled. "They ain't no more good to you than a mouthful of popcorn." He was not really amused at his partner's mishap; on the contrary, he was more than a little concerned by it, but fatigue had rendered him absurdly hysterical, and the constant friction of mental, spiritual, and physical contact with Tom had fretted his soul as that sawdust inside his clothes had fretted his body. "He, he! Ho, ho!" he chortled. "You don't shove. Oh no! All the same, whenever I stop pullin' you butt your brains out."

"I didn't shove!" The ferocity of this denial was modified and muffled by reason of the fact that a greater part of the speaker's hand was inside his mouth and his fingers were taking stock of its contents.

"All right, you didn't shove. Have it your own way. I said she was runnin' out again. We ain't cuttin' wedges, we're cuttin' boat-seats."

"Well, why don't you pull straight? I can't follow a line with you skinning the cat on your end."

"My fault again, eh?" Mr. Quirk showed the whites of his eyes and his face grew purple. "Lemme tell you something, Tom. I've studied you, careful, as man and boy, for a matter of thirty years, but I never seen you in all your hideousness till this trip. I got you now, though; I got you all added up and subtracted and I'll tell you the answer. It's my opinion, backed by figgers, that you're a dam'—" He hesitated, then with a herculean effort he managed to gulp the remainder of his sentence. In a changed voice he said: "Oh, what's the use? I s'pose you've got feelin's. Come on, let's get through."

Linton peered down over the edge of the log. "It's your opinion I'm a what?" he inquired, with vicious calmness.

"Nothing. It's no use to tell you. Now then, lift, bite, leg—Why don't you lift?"

"I AM lifting. Leggo your end!" Mr. Linton tugged violently, but the saw came up slowly. It rose and fell several times, but with the same feeling of dead weight attached to it. Tom wiped the sweat out of his eyes and once again in a stormy voice he addressed his partner: "If you don't get off them handles I'll take a stick and knock you off. What you grinnin' at?"

"Why, she's stuck, that's all. Drive your wedge—" Jerry's words ended in an agonized yelp; he began to paw blindly. "You did that a-purpose."

"Did what?"

"Kicked sawdust in my eyes. I saw you!"

Mr. Linton's voice when he spoke held that same sinister note of restrained ferocity which had characterized it heretofore. "When I start kicking I won't kick sawdust into your eyes! I'll kick your eyes into that sawdust. That's what I'll do. I'll stomp 'em out like a pair of grapes."

"You try it! You try anything with me," Jerry chattered, in a simian frenzy. "You've got a bad reputation at home; you're a malo hombre—a side-winder, you are, and your bite is certain death. That's what they say. Well, ever see a Mexican hog eat a rattler? That's me—wild hog!"

"'Wild hog.' What's wild about you?" sneered the other. "You picked the right animal but the wrong variety. Any kind of a hog makes a bad partner."

For a time the work proceeded in silence, then the latter speaker resumed: "You said I was a dam' something or other. What was it?" The object of this inquiry maintained an offensive, nay an insulting, silence. "A what?" Linton persisted.

Quirk looked up through his mask of sawdust. "If you're gettin' tired again why don't you say so? I'll wait while you rest." He opened his eyes in apparent astonishment, then he cried: "Hello! Why, it's rainin'."

"It ain't raining," Tom declared.

"Must be—your face is wet." Once more the speaker cackled shrilly in a manner intended to be mirthful, but which was in reality insulting beyond human endurance. "I never saw moisture on your brow, Tom, except when it rained or when you set too close to a fire."

"What was it you wanted to call me and was scared to?" Mr. Linton urged, venomously. "A dam' what?"

"Oh, I forget the precise epithet I had in mind. But a new one rises to my lips 'most every minute. I think I aimed to call you a dam' old fool. Something like that."

Slowly, carefully, Mr. Linton descended from the scaffold, leaving the whip-saw in its place. He was shaking with rage, with weakness, and with fatigue.

"'Old'? ME old? I'm a fool, I admit, or I wouldn't have lugged your loads and done your work the way I have. But, you see, I'm strong and vigorous and I felt sorry for a tottering wreck like you—"

"'Lugged MY loads'?" snorted the smaller man. "ME a wreck? My Gawd!"

"—I did your packing and your washing and your cooking, and mine, too, just because you was feeble and because I've got consideration for my seniors. I was raised that way. I honored your age, Jerry. I knew you was about all in, but I never CALLED you old. I wouldn't hurt your feelings. What did you do? You set around on your bony hips and criticized and picked at me. But you've picked my last feather off and I'm plumb raw. Right here we split!"

Jerry Quirk staggered slightly and leaned against a post for support. His knees were wobbly; he, too, ached in every bone and muscle; he, too, had been goaded into an insane temper, but that which maddened him beyond expression was this unwarranted charge of incompetency.

"Split it is," he agreed. "That'll take a load off my shoulders."

"We'll cut our grub fifty-fifty, then I'll hit you a clout with the traces and turn you a-loose."

Jerry was still dazed, for his world had come to an end, but he pretended to an extravagant joy and managed to chirp: "Good news—the first I've had since we went pardners. I'll sure kick up my heels. What'll we do with the boat?"

"Cut her in two."

"Right. We'll toss up for ends. We'll divide everything the same way, down to the skillet."

"Every blame' thing," Linton agreed.

Side by side they set off heavily through the woods.

Quarrels similar to this were of daily occurrence on the trail, but especially common were they here at Linderman, for of all the devices of the devil the one most trying to human patience is a whip-saw. It is a saying in the North that to know a man one must eat a sack of flour with him; it is also generally recognized that a partnership which survives the vexations of a saw-pit is time and weather proof—a predestined union more sacred and more perfect even than that of matrimony. Few indeed have stood the test.

It was in this loosening of sentimental ties, in the breach of friendships and the birth of bitter enmities, where lay the deepest tragedy of the Chilkoot and the Chilkat trails. Under ordinary, normal circumstances men of opposite temperaments may live with each other in harmony and die in mutual accord, but circumstances here were extraordinary, abnormal. Hardship, monotony, fatigue score the very soul; constant close association renders men absurdly petulant and childishly quarrelsome. Many are the heartaches charged against those early days and those early trails.

Of course there was much less internal friction in outfits like Kirby's or the Countess Courteau's, where the men worked under orders, but even there relations were often strained. Both Danny Royal and Pierce Phillips had had their troubles, their problems—nobody could escape them—but I on the whole they had held their men together pretty well and had made fast progress, all things considered. Royal had experience to draw upon, while Phillips had none; nevertheless, the Countess was a good counselor and this brief training in authority was of extreme value to the younger man, who developed some of the qualities of leadership. As a result of their frequent conferences a frank, free intimacy had sprung up between Pierce and his employer, an intimacy both gratifying and disappointing to him. Just how it affected the woman he could not tell. As a matter of fact he made little effort to learn, being for the moment too deeply concerned in the great change that had come over him.

Pierce Phillips made no effort to deceive himself: he was in love, yes, desperately in love, and his infatuation grew with every hour. It was his first serious affair and quite naturally its newness took his breath. He had heard of puppy love and he scorned it, but this was not that kind, he told himself; his was an epic adoration, a full-grown, deathless man's affection such as comes to none but the favored of the gods and then but once in a lifetime. The reason was patent—it lay in the fact that the object of his soul-consuming worship was not an ordinary woman. No, the Countess was cast in heroic mold and she inspired love of a character to match her individuality; she was one of those rare, flaming creatures the like of whom illuminate the pages of history. She was another Cleopatra, a regal, matchless creature.

To be sure, she was not at all the sort of woman he had expected to love, therefore he loved her the more; nor was she the sort he had chosen as his ideal. But it is this abandonment of old ideals and acceptance of new ones which marks development, which signalizes youth's evolution into maturity. She was a never-ending surprise to Pierce, and the fact that she remained a well of mystery, an unsounded deep that defied his attempts at exploration, excited his imagination and led him to clothe her with every admirable trait, in no few of which she was, of course, entirely lacking.

He was very boyish about this love of his. Lacking confidence to make known his feelings, he undertook to conceal them and believed he had succeeded. No doubt he had, so far as the men in his party were concerned—they were far too busy to give thought to affairs other than their own—but the woman had marked his very first surrender and now read him like an open page, from day to day. His blind, unreasoning loyalty, his complete acquiescence to her desires, his extravagant joy in doing her will, would have told her the truth even without the aid of those numerous little things which every woman understands. Now, oddly enough, the effect upon her was only a little less disturbing than upon him, for this first boy-love was a thing which no good woman could have treated lightly: its simplicity, its purity, its unselfishness were different to anything she had known—so different, for instance, to that affection which Count Courteau had bestowed upon her as to seem almost sacred—therefore she watched its growth with gratification not unmixed with apprehension. It was flattering and yet it gave her cause for some uneasiness.

As a matter of fact, Phillips was boyish only in this one regard; in other things he was very much of a man—more of a man than any one the Countess had met in a long time—and she derived unusual satisfaction from the mere privilege of depending upon him. This pleasure was so keen at times that she allowed her thoughts to take strange shape, and was stirred by yearnings, by impulses, by foolish fancies that reminded her of her girlhood days.

The boat-building had proceeded with such despatch thanks largely to Phillips, that the time for departure was close at hand, and inasmuch as there still remained a reasonable margin of safety the Countess began to feel the first certainty of success. While she was not disposed to quarrel with such a happy state of affairs, nevertheless one thing continued to bother her: she could not understand why interference had failed to come from the Kirby crowd. She had expected it, for Sam Kirby had the name of being a hard, conscienceless man, and Danny Royal had given proof that he was not above resorting to desperate means to gain time. Why, therefore, they had made no effort to hire her men away from her, especially as men were almost unobtainable here at Linderman, was something that baffled her. She had learned by bitter experience to put trust in no man, and this, coupled perhaps with the natural suspicion of her sex, combined to excite her liveliest curiosity and her deepest concern; she could not overcome the fear that this unspoken truce concealed some sinister design.

Feeling, this afternoon, a strong desire to see with her own eyes just what progress her rivals were making, she called Pierce away from his work and took him with her around the shore of the lake.

"Our last boat will be in the water to-morrow," he told her. "Kirby can't hold us up now, if he tries."

"I don't know," she said, doubtfully. "He is as short-handed as we are.
I can't understand why he has left us alone so long."

Phillips laughed. "He probably knows it isn't safe to trifle with you."

The Countess shook her head. "I couldn't bluff him. He wouldn't care whether I'm a woman or not."

"Were you bluffing when you held up Royal? I didn't think so."

"I don't think so, either. There's no telling what I might have done—I have a furious temper."

"That's nothing to apologize for," the young man declared, warmly. "It's a sign of character, force. I hope I never have reason to feel it."

"You? How absurd! You've been perfectly dear. You couldn't be otherwise."

"Do you think so, really? I'm awfully glad."

The Countess was impelled to answer this boy's eagerness by telling him frankly just how well she thought of him, just how grateful she was for all that he had done, but she restrained herself.

"All the fellows have been splendid, especially those two gamblers," she said, coolly. After a moment she continued: "Don't stop when we get to Kirby's camp. I don't want him to think we're curious."

Neither father nor daughter was in evidence when the visitors arrived at their destination, but Danny Royal was superintending the final work upon a stout scow the seams of which were being calked and daubed with tar. Mast and sweeps were being rigged; Royal himself was painting a name on the stern.

At sight of the Countess the ex-horseman dropped his brush and thrust his hands aloft, exclaiming, "Don't shoot, ma'am!" His grin was friendly; there was no rancor in his voice. "How you gettin' along down at your house?" he inquired.

"Very well," the Countess told him.

"We'll get loaded to-morrow," said Pierce.

"Same here," Royal advised. "Better come to the launching. Ain't she a bear?" He gazed fondly at the bluff-bowed, ungainly barge. "I'm goin' to bust a bottle of wine on her nose when she wets her feet. First rainy-weather hack we ever had in the family. Her name's Rouletta."

"I hope she has a safe voyage."

Royal eyed the speaker meditatively. "This trip has got my goat," he acknowledged. "Water's all right when it's cracked up and put in a glass, but—it ain't meant to build roads with. I've heard a lot about this canon and them White Horse Rapids. Are they bad?" When the Countess nodded, his weazened face darkened visibly. "Gimme a horse and I'm all right, but water scares me. Well, the Rouletta's good and strong and I'm goin' to christen her with a bottle of real champagne. If there's anything in good liquor and a good name she'll be a lucky ship."

When they were out of hearing the Countess Courteau repeated: "I don't understand it. They could have gained a week."

"We could, too, if we'd built one scow instead of those small boats,"
Pierce declared.

"Kirby is used to taking chances; he can risk all his eggs in one basket if he wants to, but—not I." A moment later the speaker paused to stare at a curious sight. On the beach ahead of her stood a brand-new rowboat ready for launching. Near it was assembled an outfit of gear and provisions, divided into two equal piles. Two old men, armed each with a hand-saw, were silently at work upon the skiff. They were sawing it in two, exactly in the middle, and they did not look up until the Countess greeted them.

"Hello! Changing the model of your boat?" she inquired.

The partners straightened themselves stiffly and removed their caps.

"Yep!" said Quirk, avoiding his partner's eyes.

"Changing her model," Mr. Linton agreed, with a hangdog expression.

"But—why? What for?"

"We've split," Mr. Quirk explained. Then he heaved a sigh. "It's made a new man of me a'ready."

"My end will look all right when I get her boarded up," Linton vouchsafed, "but Old Jerry drew the hind quarters." His shoulders heaved in silent amusement.

"'Old' Jerry!" snapped the smaller man. "Where'd you get the 'old' at? I've acted like a feeble-minded idiot, I'll admit—bein' imposed on so regular—but that's over and I'm breathin' free. Wait till you shove off in that front end; it 'ain't got the beam and you'll upset. Ha!" He uttered a malicious bark. "You'll drownd!" Mr. Quirk turned indignant eyes upon the visitors. "The idea of HIM callin' ME 'old.' Can you beat that?"

"Maybe I will drown," Linton agreed, "but drowning ain't so bad. It's better than being picked and pecked to death by a blunt-billed buzzard. I'd look on it as a kind of relief. Anyhow, you won't be there to see it; you'll be dead of rheumatism. I've got the tent."

"Huh! The stove's mine. I'll make out."

"Have you men quarreled after all these years?" the Countess made bold to inquire.

Jerry answered, and it was plain that all sentiment had been consumed in the fires of his present wrath. "I don't quarrel with a dam' old fool; I give him his way."

Linton's smoky eyes were blazing when he cried, furiously: "Cut that 'old' out, or I'll show you something. Your mind's gone—senile decay, they call it—but I'll—"

Quirk flung down his saw and advanced belligerently around the hull of the boat. He was bristling with the desire for combat.

"What'll you show me?" he shrilly challenged. "You're bigger than me, but I'll cut you down: I'll—"

The Countess stepped between the two men, crying, impatiently:

"Don't be silly. You're worn out and irritable, both of you, and you're acting like perfect idiots. You'll have everybody laughing at you."

Jerry diverted his fury to this intermediary. "Is that so?" he mocked. "Well, let 'em laugh; it'll do 'em good. You're a nice woman, but this ain't ladies' day at our club and we don't need no outside advice on how to run our party."

"Oh, very well!" The Countess shrugged and turned away, motioning
Pierce to follow her. "Fight it out to suit yourselves."

Quirk muttered something about the insolence of strangers; then he picked up his saw. In silence the work was resumed, and later, when the boat had been divided, each man set about boarding up and calking the open end of his respective half. Neither of them was expert in the use of carpenter's tools, therefore it was supper-time before they finished, and the result of their labor was nothing to be proud of. Each now possessed a craft that would float, no doubt, but which in few other respects resembled a boat; Linton's was a slim, square-ended wedge, while Quirk's was a blunt barge, fashioned on the lines of a watering-trough. They eyed the freaks with some dismay, but neither voiced the slightest regret nor acknowledged anything but supreme satisfaction.

Without a word they gathered up their tools and separated to prepare their evening meals. Linton entered his tent, now empty, cold, and cheerless; Quirk set up his stove in the open and rigged a clumsy shelter out of a small tarpaulin. Under this he spread his share of the bedding. Engaged in this, he realized that his two blankets promised to be woefully inadequate to the weather and he cocked an apprehensive eye heavenward. What he saw did not reassure him, for the evening sky was overcast and a cold, fitful wind blew from off the lake. There was no doubt about it, it looked like rain—or snow—perhaps a combination of both. Mr. Quirk felt a shiver of dread run through him, and his heart sank at the prospect of many nights like this to come. He derived some scanty comfort from the sight of old Tom puttering wearily around a camp-fire, the smoke from which followed him persistently, bringing tears to his smarting eyes and strangling complaints from his lungs.

"He's tryin' to burn green wood," Jerry said, aloud, "the old fool!"

A similar epithet was upon his former partner's tongue. Linton was saying to himself, "Old Jerry's enjoying life now, but wait till his fire goes out and it starts to rain."

He chuckled maliciously and then rehearsed a speech of curt refusal for use when Quirk came to the tent and begged shelter from the weather. There would be nothing doing, Tom made up his mind to that; he tried several insults under his breath, then he offered up a vindictive prayer for rain, hail, sleet, and snow. A howling Dakota blizzard, he decided, would exactly suit him. He was a bit rusty on prayers, but whatever his appeal may have lacked in polish it made up in earnestness, for never did petition carry aloft a greater weight of yearning than did his.

Tom fried his bacon in a stewpan, for the skillet had been divided with a cold chisel and neither half was of the slightest use to anybody. After he had eaten his pilot-bread, after he had drunk his cup of bitter tea and crept into bed, he was prompted to amend his prayer, for he discovered that two blankers were not going to be enough for him. Even the satisfaction of knowing that Jerry must feel the want even more keenly than did he failed to warm him sufficiently for thorough comfort. Tom was tired enough to swoon, but he refused to close his eyes before the rain came—what purpose was served by retributive justice unless a fellow stayed on the job to enjoy it?

Truth to say, this self-denial cost him little, for the night had brought a chill with it and the tent was damp. Linton became aware, ere long, that he couldn't go to sleep, no matter how he tried, so he rose and put on extra clothes. But even then he shivered, and thereafter, of course, his blankets served no purpose whatever. He and Old Jerry were accustomed to sleeping spoon fashion, and not only did Tom miss those other blankets, but also his ex-partner's bodily heat. He would have risen and rekindled his camp-fire had it not been for his reluctance to afford Quirk the gratification of knowing that he was uncomfortable. Some people were just malicious enough to enjoy a man's sufferings.

Well, if he were cold here in this snug shelter, Jerry must be about frozen under his flapping fly. Probably the old fool was too stubborn to whimper; no doubt he'd pretend to be enjoying himself, and would die sooner than acknowledge himself in the wrong. Jerry had courage, that way, but—this would serve him right, this would cure him. Linton was not a little disappointed when the rain continued to hold off.

CHAPTER IX

The change in the weather had not escaped Pierce Phillips' notice, and before going to bed he stepped out of his tent to study the sky. It was threatening. Recalling extravagant stories of the violence attained by storms in this mountain-lake country, he decided to make sure that his boats and cargo were out of reach of any possible danger, and so walked down to the shore.

A boisterous wind had roused Lake Linderman, and out of the inky blackness came the sound of its anger. As Pierce groped his way up to the nearest skiff he was startled by receiving a sharp challenge in the Countess Courteau's voice.

"Who is that?" she cried.

"It's I, Pierce," he answered, quickly. He discovered the woman finally, and, approaching closer, he saw that she was sitting on a pile of freight, her heels drawn up beneath her and her arms clasped around her knees. "I came down to make sure everything was snug. But what are you doing here?"

She looked down into his upturned face and her white teeth showed in a smile. "I came for the same purpose. Now I'm waiting for the storm to break. You can make out the clouds when your eyes grow accustomed—"

"It's too windy. You'll catch cold," he declared.

"Oh, I'm warm, and I love storms!" She stared out into the night, then added, "I'm a stormy creature."

Again he urged her to return to her tent, and in his voice was such genuine concern that she laid her hand upon his shoulder. It was a warm, impulsive gesture and it betrayed a grateful appreciation of his solicitude; it was the first familiarity she had ever permitted herself to indulge in, and when she spoke it was in an unusually intimate tone:

"You're a good friend, Pierce. I don't know what I'd do without you."

Phillips' surprise robbed him momentarily of speech. This woman possessed a hundred moods; a few hours before she had treated him with a cool indifference that was almost studied; now, without apparent reason, she had turned almost affectionate. Perhaps it was the night, or the solitude, that drew them together; whatever the reason, those first few words, that one impulsive gesture, assured Pierce that they were very close to each other, for the moment at least.

"I'm—glad," he said, finally. "I wish I were more—I wish—"

"What?" she queried, when he hesitated.

"I wish you COULDN'T do without me." It was out; he realized in a panic that his whole secret was hers. With no faintest intention of speaking, even of hinting at the truth, he had blurted forth a full confession. She had caught him off guard, and, like a perfect ass, he had betrayed himself. What would she think? How would she take his audacity, his presumption? He was surprised to feel her fingers tighten briefly before her hand was withdrawn.

The Countess Courteau was not offended. Had it not been for that pressure upon his shoulder Phillips would have believed that his words had gone unheard, for she entirely ignored them.

"Night! Wind! Storm!" she said, in a queer, meditative tone. "They stir the blood, don't they? Not yours, perhaps, but mine. I was always restless. You see, I was born on the ocean—on the way over here. My father was a sailor; he was a stormy-weather man. At a time like this everything in me quickens, I'm aware of impulses I never feel at other times—desires I daren't yield to. It was on a stormy night that the Count proposed to me." She laughed shortly, bitterly. "I believed him. I'd believe anything—I'd do, I'd dare anything—when the winds are reckless." She turned abruptly to her listener and it seemed to him that her eyes were strangely luminous. "Have you ever felt that way?"

He shook his head.

"Lucky for you; it would be a man's undoing. Tell me, what am I? What do you make of me?" While the young man felt for an answer she ran on: "I'd like to know. What sort of woman do you consider me? How have I impressed you? Speak plainly—no sentiment. You're a clean-minded, unsophisticated boy. I'm curious to hear—"

"I can't speak like a boy," he said, gravely, but with more than a hint of resentment in his tone, "for—I'm not a boy. Not any longer."

"Oh yes, you are! You're fresh and wholesome and honorable and— Well, only boys are that. What do I seem, to you?"

"You're a chameleon. There's nobody in the world quite like you. Why, at this minute you're different even to yourself. You—take my breath—"

"Do you consider me harsh, masculine—?"

"Oh no!"

"I'm glad of that. I'm not, really. I've had a hard experience and my eyes were opened early. I know poverty, disappointment, misery, everything unpleasant, but I'm smart and I know how to get ahead. I've never stood still. I've learned how to fight, too, for I've had to make my own way. Why, Pierce, you're the one man who ever did me an unselfish favor or a real, disinterested courtesy. Do you wonder that I want to know what kind of a creature you consider me?"

"Perhaps I'm not altogether unselfish," he told her, sullenly.

The Countess did not heed this remark; she did not seem to read the least significance into it. Her chin was upon her knees, her face was turned again to the darkness whence came the rising voice of stormy waters. The wind whipped a strand of her hair into Phillips' face.

"It is hard work fighting men—and women, too—and I'm awfully tired. Tired inside, you understand. One gets tired fighting alone—always alone. One has dreams of—well, dreams. It's a pity they never come true."

"What are some of them?" he inquired.

The woman, still under the spell of her hour, made as if to answer; then she stirred and raised her head. "This isn't a safe night to talk about them. I think I shall go to bed." She extended her hand to Phillips, but instead of taking it he reached forth and lifted her bodily down out of the wind. She gasped as she felt his strong hands under her arms; for a moment her face brushed his and her fragrant breath was warm against his cheek. Philips lowered her gently, slowly, until her feet were on the ground, but even then his grasp lingered and he held her close to him.

They stood breast to breast for a moment and Pierce saw that in this woman's expression was neither fear nor resentment, but some strange emotion new-born of the night—an emotion which his act had started into life and which as yet she did not fully understand. Her eyes were wide and wondering; they remained fixed upon his, and that very fixity suggested a meaning so surprising, so significant, that he felt the world spin dizzily under him. She was astonished, yet expectant; she was stunned but ready. He experienced a fierce desire to hold her closer, closer, to crush her in his arms, and although she resisted faintly, unconsciously she yielded; her inner being answered his without reserve. She did not turn her face away when his came closer, even when his lips covered hers.

After a long moment she surrendered wholly, she snuggled closer and bowed her head upon his shoulder. Her cheek against his was very cold from the wind and Pierce discovered that it was wet with tears.

"It has been a long fight," she sighed, in a voice that he could scarcely hear. "I didn't know how tired I was."

Phillips groped for words, but he could find nothing to say, his ordered thoughts having fled before this sudden gust of ardor as leaves are whirled away before a tempest. All he knew was that in his arms lay a woman he had knelt to, a worshipful goddess of snow and gold before whom he had abased himself, but who had turned to flesh at his first touch.

He kissed her again and again, warmly, tenderly, and yet with a ruthless fervor that grew after each caress, and she submitted passively, the while those tears stole down her cheeks. In reality she was neither passive nor passionless, for her body quivered and Phillips knew that his touch had set her afire; but rather she seemed to be exhausted and at the same time enthralled as by some dream from which she was loath to rouse herself.

After a while her hand rose to his face and stroked it softly, then she drew herself away from him and with a wan smile upon her lips said:

"The wind has made a fool of me."

"No, no!" he cried, forcefully. "You asked me what I think of you—Well, now you know."

Still smiling, she shook her head slowly, then she told him, "Come! I hear the rain."

"But I want to talk to you. I have so much to say—"

"What is there to talk about to-night? Hark!" They could feel, rather than hear, the first warnings of the coming downpour, so hand in hand they walked up the gravelly beach and into the fringe of the forest where glowed the dull illumination from lamplit canvas walls. When they paused before the Countess' tent Pierce once more enfolded her in his arms and sheltered her from the boisterous breath of the night. His emotions were in a similar tumult, but as yet he could not voice them, he could merely stammer:

"You have never told me your name."

"Hilda."

"May I—call you that?"

She nodded. "Yes—when we are alone. Hilda Halberg, that was my name."

"Hilda! Hilda—Phillips." Pierce tried the sound curiously. The Countess drew back abruptly, with a shiver; then, in answer to his quick concern, said:

"I—I think I'm cold."

He undertook to clasp her closer, but she held him off, murmuring:

"Let it be Hilda Halberg for to-night. Let's not think of—Let's not think at all. Hilda—bride of the storm. There's a tempest in my blood, and who can think with a tempest raging?"

She raised her face and kissed him upon the lips, then, disengaging herself once more from his hungry arms, she stepped inside her shelter. The last he saw of her was her luminous smile framed against the black background; then she let the tent-fly fall.

As Phillips turned away big raindrops began to drum upon the near-by tent roofs, the spruce-tops overhead bent low, limbs threshed as the gusty night wind beat upon them. But he heard none of it, felt none of it, for in his ears rang the music of the spheres and on his face lingered the warmth of a woman's lips, the first love kiss that he had ever known.

Tom Linton roused himself from a chilly doze to find that the rain had come at last. It was a roaring night; his tent was bellied in by the force of the wind, and the raindrops beat upon it with the force of buckshot. Through the entrance slit, through the open stovepipe hole, the gale poured, bringing dampness with it and rendering the interior as draughty as a corn-crib. Rolling himself more tightly in his blankets, Linton addressed the darkness through chattering teeth.

"Darned old fool! This'll teach him!" He strained his ears for sounds of Jerry, but could hear nothing above the slatting of wet canvas, the tattoo of drops, and the roar of wind in the tree-tops. After the first violence of the squall had passed he fancied he could hear his former partner stirring, so he arose and peered out into the night. At first he could see nothing, but in time he dimly made out Jerry struggling with his tarpaulin. Evidently the fly had blown down, or up, and its owner was restretching it. Linton grinned. That would drench the old dodo to the skin and he'd soon be around, begging shelter.

"But I won't let him in, not if he drowns," Tom muttered, harshly. He recalled one of Jerry's gibes at the saw-pit, a particularly unfeeling, nay, a downright venomous insult which had rankled steadily ever since. His former friend had seen fit to ridicule honest perspiration and to pretend to mistake it for raindrops. That remark had been utterly uncalled for and it had betrayed a wanton malice, a malevolent desire to wound; well, here was a chance to even the score. When Jerry came dripping to the tent door, Tom decided he would poke his head out into the deluge and then cry in evident astonishment: "Why, Jerry, you've been working, haven't you? You're all sweaty!" Mr. Linton giggled out loud. That would be a refinement of sarcasm; that would be a get-back of the finest. If Jerry insisted upon coming in out of the wet he'd tell him gruffly to get out of there and try the lake for a change.

But Mr. Quirk made no move in the direction of the tent; instead he built a fire in his stove and crouched over it, endeavoring vainly to shelter himself from the driving rain. Linton watched him with mingled impatience and resentment. Would the old fool never get enough? Jerry was the most unreasonable, the most tantalizing person in the world.

After a time Mr. Linton found that his teeth were chattering and that his frame had been smitten as by an ague; reluctantly he crept back into bed. He determined to buy, beg, borrow, or steal some more bedding on the morrow—early on the morrow in order to forestall Jerry. Jerry would have to find a tent somewhere, and inasmuch as there were none to be had here at Linderman, he would probably have to return to Dyea. That would delay him seriously—enough, perhaps, so that the jaws of winter would close down upon him. Through the drone of pattering drops there came the faint sound of a cough. Mr. Linton sat up in bed. "Pneumonia!" he exclaimed. Well, Jerry was getting exactly what he deserved. He had called him, Tom, an "old fool," a "dam' old fool," to be precise. The epithet in itself meant nothing—it was in fact a fatuous and feeble term of abuse as compared to the opprobrious titles which he and Jerry were in the habit of exchanging—it was that abominable adjective which hurt. Jerry and he had called each other many names at times, they had exchanged numerous gibes and insults, but nothing like that hateful word "old" had ever passed between them until this fatal morning. Jerry Quirk himself was old, the oldest man in the world, perhaps, but Tom had exercised an admirable regard for his partner's feelings and had never cast it up to him. Thus had his consideration been repaid. However, the poor fellow's race was about run, for he couldn't stand cold or exposure. Why, a wet foot sent him to bed. How, then, could a rickety ruin of his antiquity withstand the ravages of pneumonia—galloping pneumonia, at that?

Linton reflected that common decency would demand that he wait over a day or two and help bury the old man—people would expect that much of him. He'd do it. He'd speak kindly of the departed; he'd even erect a cross and write an epitaph upon it—a kindly, lying epitaph extolling the dead man's virtues, and omitting all mention of his faults.

Once more that hacking cough sounded, and the listener stirred uneasily. Jerry had some virtues—a few of the common, elemental sort—he was honest and he was brave, but, for that matter, so were most people. Yes, the old scoundrel had nerve enough. Linton recalled a certain day, long past, when he and Quirk had been sent out to round up some cattle-rustlers. Being the youngest deputies in the sheriff's office, the toughest jobs invariably fell to them. Those were the good, glad days, Tom reflected. Jerry had made a reputation on that trip and he had saved his companion's life—Linton flopped nervously in his bed at the memory. Why think of days dead and gone? Jerry was an altogether different man in those times. He neither criticized nor permitted others to criticize his team-mate, and, so far as that particular obligation went, Linton had repaid it with compound interest. If anything, the debt now lay on Jerry's side.

Tom tried to close the book of memory and to consider nothing whatever except the rankling present, but, now that his thoughts had begun to run backward, he could not head them off. He wished Jerry wouldn't cough; it was a distressing sound, and it disturbed his rest. Nevertheless, that hollow, hacking complaint continued and finally the listener arose, lit a lantern, put on a slicker and untied his tent flaps.

Jerry's stove was sizzling in the partial shelter of the canvas sheet; over it the owner crouched in an attitude of cheerless dejection.

"How you making out?" Tom inquired, gruffly. His voice was cold, his manner was both repellent and hostile.

"Who, me?" Jerry peered up from under his glistening sou'wester. "Oh,
I'm doin' fine!"

Linton remained silent, ill at ease; water drained off his coat; his lantern flared smokily in the wind. After a time he cleared his throat and inquired:

"Wet?"

"Naw!"

There was a long pause, then the visitor inquired: "Are you lying?"

"Unh-hunh!"

Again silence claimed both men until Tom broke out, irritably: "Well, you aim to set here all night?"

"Sure! I ain't sleepy. I don't mind a little mist and I'm plenty warm." This cheerful assertion was belied by the miserable quaver in which it was voiced.

"Why don't you-er-run over to my tent?" Linton gasped and swallowed hard. The invitation was out, the damage was done. "There's lots of room."

Mr. Quirk spared his caller's further feelings by betraying no triumph whatever. Rather plaintively he declared: "I got ROOM enough here. It ain't exactly room I need." Again he coughed.

"Here! Get a move on you, quick," Linton ordered, forcefully. "The idea of you setting around hatching out a lungful of pneumonia bugs! Git! I'll bring your bedding."

Mr. Quirk rose with alacrity. "Say! Let's take my stove over to your tent and warm her up. I bet you're cold?"

"N-no! I'm comfortable enough." The speaker's teeth played an accompaniment to this mendacious denial. "Of course I'm not sweating any, but—I s'pose the stove would cheer things up, eh? Rotten night, ain't it?"

"Worst I ever saw. Rotten country, for that matter."

"You said something," Mr. Linton chattered. He nodded his head with vigor.

It was wet work moving Jerry's belongings, but the transfer was finally effected, the stove was set up and a new fire started. This done, Tom brought forth a bottle of whisky.

"Here," said he, "take a snifter. It'll do you good."

Jerry eyed the bottle with frank astonishment before he exclaimed: "Why, I didn't know you was a drinkin' man. You been hidin' a secret vice from me?"

"No. And I'm not a drinking man. I brought it along for—you.
I—er—that cough of yours used to worry me, so—"

"Pshaw! I cough easy. You know that."

"You take a jolt and"—Linton flushed with embarrassment—"and I'll have one with you. I was lying just now; I'm colder 'n a frog's belly."

"Happy days," said Quirk, as he tipped the bottle.

"A long life and a wicked one!" Linton drank in his turn. "Now then, get out of those cold compresses. Here's some dry underclothes—thick, too. We'll double up those henskin blankets—for to-night—and I'll keep the fire a-going. I'll cure that cough if I sweat you as white as a washwoman's thumb."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," Jerry declared, as he removed his sodden garments and hung them up. "You'll crawl right into bed with me and we'll have a good sleep. You're near dead."

But Linton was by no means reassured; his tone was querulous when he cried: "Why didn't you come in before you caught cold? S'pose you get sick on me now? But you won't. I won't let you." In a panic of apprehension he dug out his half of the contents of the medicine-kit and began to paw through them. "Who got the cough syrup, Jerry; you or me?" The speaker's voice broke miserably.

Mr. Quirk laid a trembling hand upon his ex-partner's shoulder; his voice, too, was shaky when he said, "You're awful good to me, Tom."

The other shook off the grasp and undertook to read the labels on the bottles, but they had become unaccountably blurred and there was a painful lump in his throat. It seemed to him that Old Jerry's bare legs looked pitifully thin and spidery and that his bony knees had a rheumatic appearance.

"Hell! I treated you mighty mean," said he. "But I'most died when you—began to cough. I thought sure—" Tom choked and shook his gray head, then with the heel of his harsh palm he wiped a drop of moisture from his cheek. "Look at me—cryin'!" He tried to laugh and failed.

Jerry, likewise, struggled with his tears.

"You—you dam' old fool!" he cried, affectionately.

Linton smiled with delight. "Give it to me," he urged. "Lam into me,
Jerry. I deserve it. Gosh! I was lonesome!"

A half-hour later the two friends were lying side by side in their bed and the stove was glowing comfortably. They had ceased shivering. Old Jerry had "spooned" up close to old Tom and his bodily heat was grateful.

Linton eyed the fire with tender yearning. "That's a good stove you got."

"She's a corker, ain't she?"

"I been thinking about trading you a half interest in my tent for a half interest in her."

"The trade's made." There was a moment of silence. "What d'you say we hook up together—sort of go pardners for a while? I got a long outfit and a short boat. I'll put 'em in against yours. I bet we'd get along all right. I'm onnery, but I got good points."

Mr. Linton smiled dreamily. "It's a go. I need a good partner."

"I'll buy a new fryin'-pan out of my money. Mine got split, somehow."

Tom chuckled. "You darned old fool!" said he.

Jerry heaved a long sigh and snuggled closer; soon he began to snore. He snored in a low and confidential tone at first, but gradually the sound increased in volume and rose in pitch.

Linton listened to it with a thrill, and he assured himself that he had never heard music of such soul-satisfying sweetness as issued from the nostrils of his new partner.

CHAPTER X

To the early Klondikers, Chilkoot Pass was a personality, a Presence at once sinister, cruel, and forbidding. So, too, only in greater measure, was Miles Canon. The Chilkoot toyed with men, it wore them out, it stripped them of their strength and their manhood, it wrecked their courage and it broke their hearts. The canon sucked them in and swallowed them. This canon is nothing more nor less than a rift in a great basaltic barrier which lies athwart the river's course, the entrance to it being much like the door in a wall. Above it the waters are dammed and into it they pour as into a flume; down it they rage in swiftly increasing fury, for it is steeply pitched, and, although the gorge itself is not long, immediately below it are other turbulent stretches equally treacherous. It seems as if here, within the space of some four miles, Nature had exhausted her ingenuity in inventing terrors to frighten invaders, as if here she had combined every possible peril of river travel. The result of her labors is a series of cataclysms.

Immediately below Miles Canon itself are the Squaw Rapids, where the torrent spills itself over a confusion of boulders, bursting into foam and gyrating in dizzy whirlpools, its surface broken by explosions of spray or pitted by devouring vortices resembling the oily mouths of marine monsters. Below this, in turn, is the White Horse, worst of all. Here the flood somersaults over a tremendous reef, flinging on high a gleaming curtain of spray. These rapids are well named, for the tossing waves resemble nothing more than runaway white horses with streaming manes and tails.

These are by no means all the dangers that confronted the first Yukon stampeders—there are other troublesome waters below—for instance, Rink Rapids, where the river boils and bubbles like a kettle over an open fire, and Five Fingers, so-called by reason of a row of knobby, knuckled pinnacles that reach up like the stiff digits of a drowning hand and split the stream into divergent channels—but those three, Miles Canon, the Squaw, and White Horse, were the worst and together they constituted a menace that tried the courage of the bravest men.

In the canon, where the waters are most narrowly constricted, they heap themselves up into a longitudinal ridge or bore, a comb perhaps four feet higher than the general level. To ride this crest and to avoid the destroying fangs that lie in wait on either side is a feat that calls for nerve and skill and endurance on the part of boatmen. The whole four miles is a place of many voices, a thundering place that numbs the senses and destroys all hearing. Its tumult is heard afar and it covers the entire region like a blanket. The weight of that sound is oppressive.

Winter was at the heels of the Courteau party when it arrived at this point in its journey; it brought up the very tail of the autumn rush and the ice was close behind. The Countess and her companions had the uncomfortable feeling that they were inside the jaws of a trap which might be sprung at any moment, for already the hills were dusted with gray and white, creeks and rivulets were steadily dwindling and shelf ice was forming on the larger streams, the skies were low and overcast and there was a vicious tingle to the air. Delays had slowed them up, as, for instance, at Windy Arm, where a gale had held them in camp for several days; then, too, their boats were built of poorly seasoned lumber and in consequence were in need of frequent attention. Eventually, however, they came within hearing of a faint whisper, as of wind among pine branches, then of a muffled murmur that grew to a sullen diapason. The current quickened beneath them, the river-banks closed in, and finally beetling cliffs arose, between which was a cleft that swallowed the stream.

Just above the opening was a landing-place where boats lay gunwale to gunwale, and here the Courteau skiffs were grounded. A number of weather-beaten tents were stretched among the trees. Most of them were the homes of pilots, but others were occupied by voyagers who preferred to chance a winter's delay as the price of portaging their goods around rather than risk their all upon one throw of fortune. The great majority of the arrivals, however, were restowing their outfits, lashing them down and covering them preparatory to a dash through the shouting chasm. There was an atmosphere of excitement and apprehension about the place; every face was strained and expectant; fear lurked in many an eye.

On a tree near the landing were two placards. One bore a finger pointing up the steep trail to the top of the ridge, and it was marked:

"This way—two weeks."

The other pointed down directly into the throat of the roaring gorge.
It read:

"This way—two minutes."

Pierce Phillips smiled as he perused these signs; then he turned up the trail, for in his soul was a consuming curiosity to see the place of which he had heard so much.

Near the top of the slope he met a familiar figure coming down—a tall, upstanding French-Canadian who gazed out at the world through friendly eyes.

'Poleon Doret recognized the new-comer and burst into a boisterous greeting.

"Wal, wal!" he cried. "You 'ain't live' to be hung yet, eh? Now you come lookin' for me, I bet."

"Yes. You're the very man I want to see."

"Good! I tak' you t'rough."

Phillips smiled frankly. "I'm not sure I want to go through. I'm in charge of a big outfit and I'm looking for a pilot and a professional crew. I'm a perfect dub at this sort of thing."

'Poleon nodded. "Dere's no use risk it if you 'ain't got to, dat's fac'. I don' lost no boats yet, but—sometam's I bus' 'em up pretty bad." He grinned cheerily. "Dese new-comer get scare' easy an' forget to row, den dey say 'Poleon she's bum pilot. You seen de canon yet?" When Pierce shook his head the speaker turned back and led the way out to the rim.

It was an impressive spectacle that Phillips beheld. Perhaps a hundred feet directly beneath him the river whirled and leaped; cross-currents boiled out from projecting irregularities in the walls; here and there the waters tumbled madly and flung wet arms aloft, while up out of the gorge came a mighty murmur, redoubled by the echoing cliffs. A log came plunging through and it moved with the speed of a torpedo. Phillips watched it, fascinated.

"Look! Dere's a boat!" 'Poleon cried. In between the basalt jaws appeared a skiff with two rowers, and a man in the stern. The latter was braced on wide-spread legs and he held his weight upon a steering-sweep. Down the boat came at a galloping gait, threshing over waves and flinging spray head-high; it bucked and it dove, it buried its nose and then lifted it, but the oarsman continued to maintain it on a steady course.

"Bravo!" Doret shouted, waving his cap. To Pierce he said: "Dat's good pilot an' he knows swif' water. But dere's lot of feller here who ain't so good. Dey tak' chance for beeg money. Wal, w'at you t'ink of her? She's dandy, eh?"

"It's an—inferno," Phillips acknowledged. "You earn all the money you get for running it."

"You don' care for 'im, w'at?"

"I do not. I don't mind taking a chance, but—what chance would a fellow have in there? Why, he'd never come up."

"Dat's right."

Phillips stared at his companion curiously. "You must need money pretty badly."

The giant shook his head in vigorous denial. "No! Money? Pouf! She come, she go. But, you see—plenty people drowned if somebody don' tak' dem t'rough, so—I stay. Dis winter I build myse'f nice cabin an' do li'l trappin'. Nex' summer I pilot again."

"Aren't you going to Dawson?" Pierce was incredulous; he could not understand this fellow.

Doret's expression changed; a fleeting sadness settled in his eyes. "I been dere," said he. "I ain't care much for seein' beeg city. I'm lonesome feller." After a moment he exclaimed, more brightly: "Now we go, I see if I can hire crew to row your boats."

"How does she look to you?" Lucky Broad inquired, when Pierce and his companion appeared. He and Bridges had not taken the trouble to acquaint themselves with the canon, but immediately upon landing had begun to stow away their freight and to lash a tarpaulin over it.

"Better go up and see for yourself," the young man suggested.

Lucky shook his head. "Not me," he declared. "I can hear all I want to.
Listen to it! I got a long life ahead of me and I'm going to nurse it."

Kid Bridges was of like mind, for he said: "Sure! We was a coupla brave guys in Dyea, but what's the good of runnin' up to an undertaker and giving him your measurements? He'll get a tape-line on you soon enough."

"Then you don't intend to chance it?" Pierce inquired.

Broad scowled at the questioner. "Say! I wouldn't walk down that place if it was froze."

"Nor me," the other gambler seconded. "Not for a million dollars would
I tease the embalmer that way. Not for a million. Would you, Lucky?"

Broad appeared to weigh the figures carefully; then he said, doubtfully: "I'm a cheap guy. I might risk it once—for five hundred thousand, cash. But that's rock bottom; I wouldn't take a nickel less."

Doret had been listening with some amusement; now he said, "You boys got wide pay-streak, eh?"

Bridges nodded without shame. "Wider'n, a swamp, and yeller'n butter."

"Wal, I see w'at I can do." The pilot walked up the bank in search of a crew.

In the course of a half-hour he was back again and with him came the Countess Courteau. Calling Pierce aside, the woman said, swiftly: "We can't get a soul to help us; everybody's in a rush. We'll have to use our own men."

"Broad and Bridges are the best we have," he told her, "but they refuse."

"You're not afraid, are you?"

Now Pierce was afraid and he longed mightily to admit that he was, but he lacked the courage to do so. He smiled feebly and shrugged, whereupon the former speaker misread his apparent indifference and flashed him a smile.

"Forgive me," she said, in a low voice. "I know you're not." She hurried down to the water's edge and addressed the two gamblers in a business-like tone: "We've no time to lose. Which one of you wants to lead off with Doret and Pierce?"

The men exchanged glances. It was Broad who finally spoke. "We been figuring it would please us better to walk," he said, mildly.

"Suit yourselves," the Countess told them, coolly. "But it's a long walk from here to Dawson." She turned back to Pierce and said: "You've seen the canon. There's nothing so terrible about it, is there?"

Phillips was conscious that 'Poleon Doret's eyes were dancing with laughter, and anger at his own weakness flared up in him. "Why, no!" he lied, bravely. "It will be a lot of fun."

Kid Bridges leveled a sour look at the speaker. "Some folks have got low ideas of entertainment," said he. "Some folks is absolutely depraved that way. You'd probably enjoy a broken arm—it would feel so good when it got well."

The Countess Courteau's lip was curled contemptuously when she said: "Listen! I'm not going to be held up. There's a chance, of course, but hundreds have gone through. I can pull an oar. Pierce and I will row the first boat."

Doret opened his lips to protest, but Broad obviated the necessity of speech by rising from his seat and announcing: "Deal the cards! I came in on no pair; I don't aim to be raised out ahead of the draw-not by a woman."

Mr. Bridges was both shocked and aggrieved by his companion's words.
"You going to tackle it?" he asked, incredulously.

Lucky made a grimace of intense abhorrence in Pierce's direction.
"Sure! I don't want to miss all this fun I hear about."

"When you get through, if you do, which you probably won't," Bridges told him, with a bleak and cheerless expression, "set a gill-net to catch me. I'll be down on the next trip."

"Good for you!" cried the Countess.

"It ain't good for me," the man exclaimed, angrily. "It's the worst thing in the world for me. I'm grand-standing and you know it. So's Lucky, but there wouldn't be any living with him if he pulled it off and I didn't."

Doret chuckled. To Pierce he said, in a low voice: "Plenty feller mak' fool of demse'f on dat woman. I know all 'bout it. But she 'ain't mak' fool of herse'f, you bet."

"How do you mean?" Pierce inquired, quickly.

'Poleon eyed him shrewdly. "Wal, tak' you. You're scare', ain't you? But you sooner die so long she don't know it. Plenty oder feller jus' lak' dat." He walked to the nearest skiff, removed his coat, and began to untie his boots.

Lucky Broad joined the pilot, then looked on uneasily at these preparations. "What's the idea?" he inquired. "Are you too hot?"

'Poleon grinned at him and nodded. Very reluctantly Broad stripped off his mackinaw, then seated himself and tugged at his footgear. He paused, after a moment, and addressed himself to Bridges.

"It's no use, Kid. I squawk!" he said.

"Beginning to weaken, eh?"

"Sure! I got a hole in my sock-look! Somebody 'll find me after I've been drowned a week or two, and what'll they say?"

"Pshaw! You won't come up till you get to St. Michael's, and you'll be spoiled by that time." Kid Bridges tried to smile, but the result was a failure. "You'll be swelled up like a dead horse, and so'll I. They won't know us apart."

When Pierce had likewise stripped down and taken his place at the oars, Broad grumbled: "The idea of calling me 'Lucky'! It ain't in the cards." He spat on his hands and settled himself in his seat, then cried, "Well, lead your ace!"

As the little craft moved out into the stream, Pierce Phillips noticed that the Kirby scow, which had run the Courteau boats a close race all the way from Linderman, was just pulling into the bank. Lines had been passed ashore and, standing on the top of the cargo, he could make out the figure of Rouletta Kirby.

In spite of a strong steady stroke the rowboat seemed to move sluggishly; foam and debris bobbed alongside and progress appeared to be slow, but when the oarsmen lifted their eyes they discovered that the shores were running past with amazing swiftness. Even as they looked, those shores rose abruptly and closed in, there came a mounting roar, then the skiff was sucked in between high, rugged walls. Unseen hands reached forth and seized it, unseen forces laid hold of it and impelled it forward; it began to plunge and to wallow; spray flew and wave-crests climbed over the gunwales.

Above the tumult 'Poleon was urging his crew to greater efforts. "Pull hard!" he shouted. "Hi! Hi! Hi!" He swayed in unison to their straining bodies. "Mak' dose oar crack," he yelled. "By Gar, dat's goin' some!"

The fellow's teeth were gleaming, his face was alight with an exultant recklessness, he cast defiance at the approaching terrors. He was alert, watchful; under his hands the stout ash steering-oar bent like a bow; he flung his whole strength into the battle with the waters. Soon the roar increased until it drowned his shouts and forced him to pantomime his orders. The boat was galloping through a wild smother of ice-cold spray and the reverberating cliffs were streaming past like the unrolling scenery on a painted canvas panorama.

It was a hellish place; it echoed to a demoniac din and it was a tremendous sensation to brave it, for the boat did not glide nor slip down the descent; it went in a succession of jarring leaps; it lurched and twisted; it rolled and plunged as if in a demented effort to unseat its passengers and scatter its cargo. To the occupants it seemed as if its joints were opening, as if the boards themselves were being wrenched loose from the ribs to which they were nailed. The men were drenched, of course, for they traveled in a cloud of spume; their feet were ankle-deep in cold water, and every new deluge caused them to gasp.

How long it lasted Pierce Phillips never knew; the experience was too terrific to be long lived. It was a nightmare, a hideous phantasmagoria of frightful sensations, a dissolving stereopticon of bleak, scudding walls, of hydrophobic boulders frothing madly as the flood crashed over them, of treacherous whirlpools, and of pursuing breakers that reached forth licking tongues of destruction. Then the river opened, the cliffs fell away, and the torrent spewed itself out into an expanse of whirlpools—a lake of gyrating funnels that warred with one another and threatened to twist the keel from under the boat.

'Poleon swung close in to the right bank, where an eddy raced up against the flood; some one flung a rope from the shore and drew the boat in.

"Wal! I never had no better crew," cried the pilot. "Wat you t'ink of 'im, eh?" He smiled down at the white-lipped oarsmen, who leaned forward, panting and dripping.

"Is—that all of it?" Lucky Broad inquired, weakly.

"Mais non! Look! Dere's Wite 'Orse."

Doret indicated a wall of foam and spray farther down the river. Directly across the expanse of whirlpools stood a village named after the rapids. "You get plenty more bimeby."

"You're wrong. I got plenty right now," Broad declared.

"I'm glad the Countess didn't come," said Phillips.

When the men had wrung out their clothes and put on their boots they set out along the back trail over the bluffs.

Danny Royal was not an imaginative person. He possessed, to be sure, the superstitions of the average horseman and gambler, and he believed strongly in hunches, but he was not fanciful and he put no faith in dreams and portents. It bothered him exceedingly, therefore, to discover that he was weighed down by an unaccountable but extremely oppressive sense of apprehension. How or why it had come to obsess him he could not imagine, but for some reason Miles Canon and the stormy waters below it had assumed terrible potentialities and he could not shake off the conviction that they were destined to prove his undoing. This feeling he had allowed to grow until now a fatalistic apathy had settled upon him and his usual cheerfulness was replaced by a senseless irritability. He suffered explosions of temper quite as surprising to the Kirbys, father and daughter, as to himself. On the day of his arrival he was particularly ugly, wherefore Rouletta was impelled to remonstrate with him.

"What ails you, Danny?" she inquired. "You'll have our men quitting."

"I wish they would," he cried. "Boatmen! They don't know as much about boats as me and Sam."

"They do whatever they're told."

Royal acknowledged this fact ungraciously. "Trouble is we don't know what to tell 'em to do. All Sam knows is 'gee' and 'haw,' and I can't steer anything that don't wear a bridle. Why, if this river wasn't fenced in with trees we'd have taken the wrong road and been lost, long ago."

Rouletta nodded thoughtfully. "Father is just as afraid of water as you are. He won't admit it, but I can tell. It has gotten on his nerves and—I've had hard work to keep him from drinking."

"Say! Don't let him get started on THAT!" Danny exclaimed, earnestly.
"That WOULD be the last touch."

"Trust me. I—"

But Kirby himself appeared at that moment, having returned from a voyage of exploration. Said he: "There's a good town below. I had a chance to sell the outfit."

"Going to do it?" Danny could not conceal his eagerness.

The elder man shook his gray head. "Hardly. I'm no piker."

"I wish you and Danny would take the portage and trust the pilot to run the rapids," Rouletta said.

Kirby turned his expressionless face upon first one then the other of his companions. "Nervous?" he inquired of Royal.

The latter silently admitted that he was.

"Go ahead. You and Letty cross afoot—"

"And you?"

"Oh, I'm going to stick!"

"Father—" the girl began, but old Sam shook his head.

"No. This is my case bet, and I'm going to watch it."

Royal's weazened face puckered until it resembled more than ever a withered apple. "Then I'll stick, too," he declared. "I never laid down on you yet, Sam."

"How about you, Letty?"

The girl smiled. "Why, I wouldn't trust you boys out of my sight for a minute. Something would surely happen."

Kirby stooped and kissed his daughter's cheek. "You've always been our mascot, and you've always brought us luck. I'd go to hell in a paper suit if you were along. You're a game kid, too, and I want you to be like that, always. Be a thoroughbred. Don't weaken, no matter how bad things break for you. This cargo of rum is worth the best claim in Dawson, and it'll put us on our feet again. All I want is one more chance. Double and quit—that's us."

This was an extraordinarily long speech for "One-armed" Kirby; it showed that he was deeply in earnest.

"Double and quit?" breathed the girl. "Do you mean it, dad?"

He nodded: "I'm going to leave you heeled. I don't aim to take my eyes off this barge again till she's in Dawson."

Rouletta's face was transformed; there was a great gladness in her eyes—a gladness half obscured by tears. "Double and quit. Oh—I've dreamed of—quitting—so often! You've made me very happy, dad."

Royal, who knew this girl's dreams as well as he knew his own, felt a lump in his throat. He was a godless little man, but Rouletta Kirby's joys were holy things to him, her tears distressed him deeply, therefore he walked away to avoid the sight of them. Her slightest wish had been his law ever since she had mastered words enough to voice a request, and now he, too, was happy to learn that Sam Kirby was at last ready to mold his future in accordance with her desires. Letty had never liked their mode of life; she had accepted it under protest, and with the passing years her unspoken disapproval had assumed the proportions of a great reproach. She had never put that disapproval into words—she was far too loyal for that—but Danny had known. He knew her ambitions and her possibilities, and he had sufficient vision to realize something of the injustice she suffered at her father's hands. Sam loved his daughter as few parents love a child, but he was a strange man and he showed his affection in characteristic ways. It pleased Royal greatly to learn that the old man had awakened to the wrong he did, and that this adventure would serve to close the story, as all good stories close, with a happy ending.

In spite of these cheering thoughts, Danny was unable wholly to shake off his oppressive forebodings, and as he paused on the river-bank to stare with gloomy fascination at the jaws of the gorge they returned to plague him. The sound that issued out of that place was terrifying, the knowledge that it frightened him enraged the little man.

It was an unpropitious moment for any one to address Royal; therefore, when he heard himself spoken to, he whirled with a scowl upon his face. A tall French-Canadian, just back from the portage, was saying:

"M'sieu', I ain't good hand at mix in 'noder feller's bizneses, but—dat pilot you got she's no good."

Royal looked the stranger over from head to foot. "How d'you know?" he inquired, sharply.

"Biccause—I'm pilot myse'f."

"Oh, I see! You're one of the GOOD ones." Danny's air was surly, his tone forbidding.

"Yes."

"Hate yourself, don't you? I s'pose you want his job. Is that it? No wonder—five hundred seeds for fifteen minutes' work. Soft graft, I call it." The speaker laughed unpleasantly. "Well, what does a GOOD pilot charge?"

"Me?" The Canadian shrugged indifferently. "I charge you one t'ousan' dollar."