asking, by any and all residents of Dawson desiring change of domicile
to the peace and solitude of the town of Tra-Lee.

(Note: Peace and solitude always and perpetually guaranteed in town
of Tra-Lee)

(Signed) SMOKE BELLEW, President.
(Signed) JACK SHORT, Secretary.

XII. WONDER OF WOMAN

"Just the same, I notice you ain't tumbled over yourself to get
married," Shorty remarked, continuing a conversation that had lapsed
some few minutes before.

Smoke, sitting on the edge of the sleeping-robe and examining the feet
of a dog he had rolled snarling on its back in the snow, did not answer.
And Shorty, turning a steaming moccasin propped on a stick before the
fire, studied his partner's face keenly.

"Cock your eye up at that there aurora borealis," Shorty went on. "Some
frivolous, eh? Just like any shilly-shallyin', shirt-dancing woman. The
best of them is frivolous, when they ain't foolish. And they's cats,
all of 'em, the littlest an' the biggest, the nicest and the otherwise.
They're sure devourin' lions an' roarin' hyenas when they get on the
trail of a man they've cottoned to."

Again the monologue languished. Smoke cuffed the dog when it attempted
to snap his hand, and went on examining its bruised and bleeding pads.

"Huh!" pursued Shorty. "Mebbe I couldn't 'a' married if I'd a mind to!
An' mebbe I wouldn't 'a' been married without a mind to, if I hadn't
hiked for tall timber. Smoke, d'you want to know what saved me? I'll
tell you. My wind. I just kept a-runnin'. I'd like to see any skirt run
me outa breath."

Smoke released the animal and turned his own steaming, stick-propped
moccasins. "We've got to rest over to-morrow and make moccasins," he
vouchsafed. "That little crust is playing the devil with their feet."

"We oughta keep goin' somehow," Shorty objected. "We ain't got grub
enough to turn back with, and we gotta strike that run of caribou or
them white Indians almighty soon or we'll be eatin' the dogs, sore
feet an' all. Now who ever seen them white Indians anyway? Nothin'
but hearsay. An' how can a Indian be white? A black white man'd be as
natural. Smoke, we just oughta travel to-morrow. The country's plumb
dead of game. We ain't seen even a rabbit-track in a week, you know
that. An' we gotta get out of this dead streak into somewhere that
meat's runnin'."

"They'll travel all the better with a da