t again in Chilkoot, the exit from the land of
street noises and Dead Sea apple pies.

Up Sixth avenue, with the tripping, scurrying, chattering,
bright-eyed, homing tide came the Girl from Sieber-Mason's. The Man
from Nome looked and saw, first, that she was supremely beautiful
after his own conception of beauty; and next, that she moved with
exactly the steady grace of a dog sled on a level crust of snow. His
third sensation was an instantaneous conviction that he desired her
greatly for his own. This quickly do men from Nome make up their
minds. Besides, he was going back to the North in a short time, and
to act quickly was no less necessary.

A thousand girls from the great department store of Sieber-Mason
flowed along the sidewalk, making navigation dangerous to men whose
feminine field of vision for three years has been chiefly limited to
Siwash and Chilkat squaws. But the Man from Nome, loyal to her who
had resurrected his long cached heart, plunged into the stream of
pulchritude and followed her.

Down Twenty-third street she glided swiftly, looking to neither side;
no more flirtatious than the bronze Diana above the Garden. Her fine
brown hair was neatly braided; her neat waist and unwrinkled black
skirt were eloquent of the double virtues--taste and economy. Ten
yards behind followed the smitten Man from Nome.

Miss Claribel Colby, the Girl from Sieber-Mason's, belonged to
that sad company of mariners known as Jersey commuters. She walked
into the waiting-room of the ferry, and up the stairs, and by a
marvellous swift, little run, caught the ferry-boat that was just
going out. The Man from Nome closed up his ten yards in three jumps
and gained the deck close beside her.

Miss Colby chose a rather lonely seat on the outside of the
upper-cabin. The night was not cold, and she desired to be away from
the curious eyes and tedious voices of the passengers. Besides, she
was extremely weary and drooping from lack of sleep. On the previous
night she had graced the annual ball and oyster fry of the West Side
Wholesale Fish Dealers' Assistants' Social Club No. 2, thus reducing
her usual time of sleep to only three hours.

And the day had been uncommonly troublous. Customers had been
inordinately trying; the buyer in her department had scolded her
roundly for letting her stock run down; her best friend, Mamie
Tuthill, had snubbed her by going to lunch with that Dockery girl.

The Girl from Sieber-Mason's was in