quarters and made ready to push on afoot--on hands and
knees, if necessary. Here was a man who had made a fortune in one short
autumn, for with the customary ignorance of tenderfeet they perceived no
distinction between a mining claim and a mine. A gold-mine, they
reasoned, was worth anything one wished to imagine, from a hundred
thousand to a million; thirty gold-mines were worth thirty
millions--figure it out for yourself. The conservative ones cut the
result in half and were well satisfied with it. They were glad they had
come.

The steamboat captain offered McGill a bed in his own cabin, for the log
houses were not yet completed, and that night at supper the miner met
the rest of the big family. Among them was a girl. Once McGill had
beheld her, he could see none of the others; he became an automaton,
directing his words at random, but focusing his soul upon her. He could
not recall her name, for her first glance had driven all memory out of
his head, and during the meal he feasted his hungry eyes upon her,
feeling a yearning such as he had never before experienced. He did not
pause to argue what it foretold; it is doubtful if he would have
realized had he taken time to think, for he had never known women well,
and ten years in the Yukon country had dimmed what youthful
recollections he possessed. When he went to bed he was in a daze that
did not vanish even when the captain, after carefully locking the doors
and closing the cabin shutters, crawled under the bunk and brought forth
a five-gallon keg of whisky, which he fondled like a mother her babe.

"Wait till you taste it," crooned the old man. "Nothing like it north of
Vancouver. If I didn't keep it hid I'd have a mutiny."

He removed a steaming kettle from the stove, then, unearthing some sugar
from the chart-case, mixed a toddy, muttering: "Just wait, that's all.
You just wait!" With the pains of a chemist he divided the beverage into
two equal portions, rolled the contents of his own glass under his
tongue with a look of beatitude on his wrinkled features, then inquired,
"What did I tell you?"

"It's great," McGill acknowledged. "First real liquor I've tasted for
months." Then he fell to staring at the fire.

After a time he asked, "Who's the lady I was talking to?"

"The one with the red sweater?"

"Yes."

"Miss Andrews. Her first name is Alice."

"Alice!" McGill spoke it softly. "I--I s'pose she's married, of course?"

"No, _Miss_ Andrews."

M