cabin. Since
the semi-crisis in her illness, over which Katrine had helped her, there
seemed to be little change in her condition from day to day. That is,
the change did not show itself externally; within the delicate
structure, the disease, aided by the cold, the foul damp air of the
town, and hopeless spirits, crept steadily and quickly on, but gave
little or no outward sign, and Katrine hoped against hope that she could
possibly tide her over the time till Will perhaps made a strike and
could take her away. She knew how the sick woman clung to this idea. For
months now she had been shut off from all communication with the outer
world, she never saw a paper or a book, she could not move from her
cabin, her whole sphere was bounded now by its four rough walls, and so
the one idea that was left to her starved brain and heart was that Will
should make a strike. And as a weed runs over a bare and neglected
garden, so will one single idea completely absorb and fill a neglected
brain, and grow and grow to gigantic strength. This was Annie's one
idea; she brooded over it, pondered over it, nursed it, slept with it,
and talked to Katrine of it with burning eyes, till the latter felt if
it could only be fulfilled the joy of it would almost cure her. And it
might be fulfilled, she knew, any day. It was early days in the Klondike
then, and plenty of good ground lay around waiting to be discovered. She
heard from Stephen that Will was steady and energetic, had given up
drink, and was set upon the idea of prospecting for land of his own.
Katrine's heart beat hard with pure sympathy as she heard, and she
begged Stephen as the one thing he could do for herself to facilitate
Will's efforts in every way and aid him for her sake. Meanwhile, her own
care was to keep the fragile creature who was living upon hope still on
this side of the Great Divide. And to this end she worked night and
day. She kept her cabin clean and well lighted and well warmed. She
bought and made soup, and gave fabulous prices for meat and wine, and
sat with her long hours cheering her with stories heard in the saloons
and picked up in the streets, and scraps of news from the gulch and
farther points.

The disease seemed so quiescent that Katrine began to hope more and more
that she should be rewarded, and one morning a hurried note scribbled in
pencil was brought in to Annie while Katrine was scrubbing the cabin
floor, telling her in a few ill-spelt words that W