he cut-offs to the right and follow the
swiftest water. Now off with you and into your blankets. It's seventy
miles to Dawson, and you'll have to make it at one clip."

CHAPTER XXVIII

Jacob Welse was given due respect when he arose at the convening of the
miners' meeting and denounced the proceedings. While such meetings had
performed a legitimate function in the past, he contended, when there
was no law in the land, that time was now beyond recall; for law was
now established, and it was just law. The Queen's government had shown
itself fit to cope with the situation, and for them to usurp its powers
was to step backward into the night out of which they had come.
Further, no lighter word than "criminal" could characterize such
conduct. And yet further, he promised them, in set, sober terms, if
anything serious were the outcome, to take an active part in the
prosecution of every one of them. At the conclusion of his speech he
made a motion to hold the prisoner for the territorial court and to
adjourn, but was voted down without discussion.

"Don't you see," St. Vincent said to Frona, "there is no hope?"

"But there is. Listen!" And she swiftly outlined the plot of the
night before.

He followed her in a half-hearted way, too crushed to partake of her
enthusiasm. "It's madness to attempt it," he objected, when she had
done.

"And it looks very much like hanging not to attempt it," she answered a
little spiritedly. "Surely you will make a fight?"

"Surely," he replied, hollowly.

The first witnesses were two Swedes, who told of the wash-tub incident,
when Borg had given way to one of his fits of anger. Trivial as the
incident was, in the light of subsequent events it at once became
serious. It opened the way for the imagination into a vast familiar
field. It was not so much what was said as what was left unsaid. Men
born of women, the rudest of them, knew life well enough to be aware of
its significance,--a vulgar common happening, capable of but one
interpretation. Heads were wagged knowingly in the course of the
testimony, and whispered comments went the rounds.

Half a dozen witnesses followed in rapid succession, all of whom had
closely examined the scene of the crime and gone over the island
carefully, and all of whom were agreed that there was not the slightest
trace to be found of the two men mentioned by the prisoner in his
preliminary statement.

To Frona's surprise, Del Bishop