he renaissance of blue skies.
Rags of snow still glimmered on the hills, and the brown earth, as if
ashamed of its nakedness, was bursting greenly forth. On the slope
overlooking the Klondike, girls in white dresses were gathering the wild
crocus. All was warmth, colour, awakening life.

Surely the river ice could not hold much longer. It was patchy, netted
with cracks, heaved up in ridges, mottled with slushy pools, corroded to
the bottom. Decidedly it was rotten, rotten. Still it held stubbornly.
The Klondike hammered it with mighty bergs, black and heavy as a house.
Down the swift current they sped, crashing, grinding, roaring, to batter
into the unbroken armour of the Yukon. And along its banks, watching
even as we watched, were thousands of others. On every lip was the
question--"The ice--when will it go out?" For to these exiles of the
North, after eight months of isolation, the sight of open water would be
like Heaven. It would mean boats, freedom, friendly faces, and a step
nearer to that "outside" of their dreams.

Towards the centre of the vast mass of ice that belted in the city was a
post, and on this lonely post thousands of eyes were constantly turning.
For an electric wire connected it with the town, so that when it moved
down a certain distance a clock would register the exact moment. Thus,
thousands gazing at that solitary post thought of the bets they had
made, and wondered if this year they would be the lucky ones. It is a
unique incident in Dawson life, this gambling on the ice. There are
dozens of pools, large and small, and both men and women take part in
the betting, with an eagerness and excitement that is almost childish.

I sat on a bench on the N. C. trail overlooking the town, and watched
the Jam-wagon crawl down the hill to his cabin. Poor fellow! How drawn
and white was his face, and his long, clean frame--how gaunt and weary!
I felt sorry for him. What would become of him? He was a splendid
"misfit." If he only had another chance! Somehow I believed in him, and
fervently I hoped he would have that good clean start again.

Up in the cold remoteness of the North are many of his kind--the black
sheep, the undesirables, the discards of the pack. Their lips are
sealed; their eyes are cold as glaciers, and often they drink deep. Oh,
they are a mighty company, the men you don't enquire about; but it is
the code of the North to take them as you find them, so they go their
way unregarded.

How