and Montague tumbled
in upon us.

"What brought you back?" we questioned when we'd finished mauling him.

It was June, and the nights were as light as day in this latitude, so we
could see his face plainly.

"Why--er--" He hesitated for an instant, then threw back his head,
squared his great young shoulders, and looked us in the eyes, while all
his embarrassment fled. "I came back to marry Olive Marceau," said he.
"I came to take her back home to the little mother."

He stared out wistfully at the distant southern mountains, effulgent and
glorified by the midnight sun which lay so close behind their crests,
and I winked at Martin.

"She's left--"

"What!" He whirled quickly.

"--the theater, and I don't suppose you can see her until to-morrow."

Disappointment darkened his face.

"Besides," Kink added, gloomily, "when you quit her like a dog I slicked
myself up some, and I ain't anyways sure she'll care to see you
now--only jest as a friend of mine. Notice I've cut my whiskers, don't
you?"

We made Monty pay for that instant's hesitation, the last he ever had,
and then I said:

"You walk up the river trail for a quarter of a mile and wait. If I can
persuade her to come out at this hour I'll send her to you. No, you
couldn't find her. She's moved since you left."

"I wouldn't gamble none on her meetin' you," Martin said,
discouragingly, and combed out his new-mown beard with ostentation.

She was up the moment I knocked, and when I said that a man needed help
I heard her murmur sympathetically as she dressed. When we came to our
tent I stopped her.

"He's up yonder a piece," said I. "You run along while I fetch Kink and
the medicine-kit. We'll overtake you."

"Is it anything serious?"

"Yes, it's apt to be unless you hurry. He seems to think he needs you
pretty badly."

And so she went up the river trail to where he was waiting, her way
golden with the beams of the sun whose rim peeped at her over the
far-off hills. And there, in the free, still air, among the virgin
spruce, with the clean, sweet moss beneath their feet, they met. The
good sun smiled broadly at them now, and the grim Yukon hurried past,
chuckling under its banks and swiggering among the roots, while the song
it sang was of spring and of long, bright days that had no night.

McGILL

The ice was running when McGill arrived. Had he been two hours later he
might have fared badly, for the ramparts above Ophir choke the ri