air and the white throat lifted toward him was
round as that of a bird.

"Your father was among the first of those who stampeded to Bonanza. He
and Strong took up a claim together. I bought out the interest of your
father."

"You told me that."

His masterful eyes fastened to hers. "I didn't tell you that I took
advantage of him. He was--not well. I used that against him in the
bargaining. He wanted ready money, and I tempted him."

"Do you mean that you--wronged him?"

"Yes. I cheated him." He was resolved to gloss over nothing, to offer no
excuses. "I didn't know there was gold on his claim, but I had what we
call a hunch. I took his claim without giving value received."

It was her turn now to look into the fire and think. From the letters
of her father, from talks with old-timers she knew how in the stampedes
every man's hand had been for himself, how keen-edged had been the
passion for gold, a veritable lust that corroded the souls of men.

"But--I don't understand." Her brave, steady eyes looked directly into
those of Macdonald. "If he felt you had--done him a wrong--why did he
come to you when he was ill?"

"He was coming to demand justice of me. On the way he suffered exposure
and caught pneumonia. The word reached us, and Strong and I brought him
to our cabin."

"You faced a blizzard to bring him in. Mr. Strong told me how you risked
your life by carrying him through the storm--how you wouldn't give up
and leave him, though you were weak and staggering yourself. He says it
was a miracle you ever got through."

The big mine-owner brushed this aside as of no importance. "We don't
leave sick men to die in a blizzard up North. But that's not the point."

"I think it has a bearing on the matter--that you saved him from the
blizzard--and took him in--and nursed him like a brother till he died."

"I'm not heartless," said Macdonald impatiently. "Of course I did that.
I had to do it. I couldn't do less."

"Or more," she suggested. "You may have made a hard bargain with him,
but you wiped that out later."

"That's just what I didn't do. Don't think my conscience is troubling
me. I'm not such a mush-brained fool. If it had not been for you I would
never have thought of it again. But you are his daughter. What I cheated
him out of belongs to you--and you are my friend."

"Don't use that word about what you did, please. He wasn't a child. If
you got the best of him in a bargain, I don't think father would