mutual--" And we all laughed.

We roused up a good fire and made her take off all the wet clothes she
felt she could afford to, then wrung them out and hung them up to dry.
We made her gulp down another whisky, too, after which I gave her some
footgear and she slipped into one of Martin's Mackinaw shirts. We knew
just how faint and shaky she felt, but she was dead game and joked with
us about it.

I never realized what a cute trick she was till I saw her in that great,
coarse, blue shirt with her feet in beaded moccasins, her yellow hair
tousled, and the sparkle of adventure in her bright eyes. She stood out
like a nugget by candle-light, backed as she was, by the dingy bark
walls of our cabin.

I suppose it was a bad instant for Prosser to appear. He certainly cued
in wrong and found the sight shocking to his Plymouth Rock proprieties.

The raw liquor we had forced on her had gone to her head a bit, as it
will when you're fresh from the cold and your stomach is empty, so her
face was flushed and had a pretty, reckless, daring look to it. She had
her feet high up on a chair, too--not so very high, either--where they
were thawing out under the warmth of the oven, and we were all laughing
at her story of the mishap.

Monty stopped on recognizing who she was, while the surprise in his face
gave way to disapproval. We could see it as plain as if it was blazoned
there in printer's ink, and it sobered us. The girl removed her feet and
stood up.

"Miss Marceau has just had an accident," I began, but I saw his eyes
were fastened on the bottle on the table, and I saw also that he knew
what caused the fever in her cheeks.

"Too bad," he said, coldly. "If I can be of any assistance you'll find
me down at the shaft-house." And out he walked.

I knew he didn't intend to be inhospitable; that it was just his
infernal notions of decency, and that he refused to be a party to
anything as devilish as this looked--but it wasn't according to the
Alaska code, and it was like a slap in the girl's face.

"I am quite dry," she said. "I'll be going now."

"You will not. You'll stay to supper and drive home by moonlight," says
we. "Why, you'd freeze in a mile!" And we made her listen to us.

During the meal Prosser never opened his mouth except to put something
into it, but his manner was as full of language as an oration. He didn't
thaw out the way a man should when he sees strangers wading into the
grub he's paid a dollar a pound