hich drive the stake, is nevaire no more. Sixty days no mans on
that claim file the papaire. Then odder mans, plentee odder mans--what
you call--jump that claim. Then they race, O so queek, like the wind, to
file the papaire. Him be vaire rich. Him get grub for famine."

Harrington hid the major portion of his interest.

"When's the time up?" he asked. "What claim is it?"

"So I speak Louis Savoy last night," she continued, ignoring him. "Him I
think the winnaire."

"Hang Louis Savoy!"

"So Louis Savoy speak in my cabin last night. Him say, 'Joy, I am strong
mans. I haf good dogs. I haf long wind. I will be winnaire. Then you
will haf me for hoosband?' And I say to him, I say--"

"What'd you say?"

"I say, 'If Louis Savoy is winnaire, then will he haf me for wife.'"

"And if he don't win?"

"Then Louis Savoy, him will not be--what you call--the father of my
children."

"And if I win?"

"You winnaire? Ha! ha! Nevaire!"

Exasperating as it was, Joy Molineau's laughter was pretty to hear.
Harrington did not mind it. He had long since been broken in. Besides,
he was no exception. She had forced all her lovers to suffer in kind.
And very enticing she was just then, her lips parted, her color
heightened by the sharp kiss of the frost, her eyes vibrant with the lure
which is the greatest of all lures and which may be seen nowhere save in
woman's eyes. Her sled-dogs clustered about her in hirsute masses, and
the leader, Wolf Fang, laid his long snout softly in her lap.

"If I do win?" Harrington pressed.

She looked from dog to lover and back again.

"What you say, Wolf Fang? If him strong mans and file the papaire, shall
we his wife become? Eh? What you say?"

Wolf Fang picked up his ears and growled at Harrington.

"It is vaire cold," she suddenly added with feminine irrelevance, rising
to her feet and straightening out the team.

Her lover looked on stolidly. She had kept him guessing from the first
time they met, and patience had been joined unto his virtues.

"Hi! Wolf Fang!" she cried, springing upon the sled as it leaped into
sudden motion. "Ai! Ya! Mush-on!"

From the corner of his eye Harrington watched her swinging down the trail
to Forty Mile. Where the road forked and crossed the river to Fort
Cudahy, she halted the dogs and turned about.

"O Mistaire Lazy Mans!" she called back. "Wolf Fang, him say yes--if you
winnaire!"

* * * * *

But somehow, as such thi