nd he didn't until we hit the next saloon."

She laughed merrily as he turned and dried his wet hands.

"It's good to hear you laugh," he said. "If you'd only laugh sometimes,
Angela, I wouldn't care a damn about short rations. I seen men laugh on
the plains when the chances were that two hours later their scalps would
be hanging at the belts of Injuns. I was only a kid then ... but laughing
is a fine thing. You can't beat a man who laughs."

"You used to laugh then?"

"Sure!"

"But not now!"

He stared out through the window.

"Maybe that's why I'm being beaten," he said.

She stood up and touched him on the arm.

"I don't think you'll ever be beaten," she said.

He shook his head, almost fearful of meeting those clear, beautiful eyes
of hers.

"Only one thing in the world can beat me," he said. "And that is the thing
which above all others I'm mad to get; and it ain't gold."

He spent the evening packing up the gear and the food that remained, ready
for the journey down the river. The home-made sled was again
requisitioned, after undergoing sundry repairs. Late in the evening
Angela, from the inner room, called him. Nervously he went inside, to find
her with her wonderful hair flowing over her shoulders and her dress half
undone.

"I--I can't get it off," she complained.

He attended to the stubborn buttons and pulled the top down over her
shoulders. On the threshold of the door he called back.

"Good-night, Angela."

She stood surveying him intently, and then came towards him.

"Whatever lies before us, don't think me ungrateful. I'll try to be a good
comrade in the future if you'll let me. You've suffered so much.... It
was never my wish that you should suffer. Even a bought wife has--a
soul."

He saw the swell of her bosom below the pure white shoulders. All her
intoxicating beauty seemed to be pleading to him. Her lips, made for
kissing, were like alluring blossoms of spring. For a moment he stood
drunk with passionate desire. Then he touched her fingers lightly and went
outside.

CHAPTER XIX

THE CRISIS

It was spring on the Yukon--the radiant, glorious spring that is
sandwiched between the intense winter and the dank, enervating summer.
Birds sang in the woods, their liquid voices accompanied by the deep noise
of the river, belching its millions of tons of ice into the Bering Sea. In
the lower valleys the snow had vanished, and the rich green carpet of the
earth shimmered in