at," Granger replied. "But listen to
me this once, for we may never meet again; who knows, in this land of
death? I want to explain to you how it was that I behaved as I did,
and to ask your forgiveness."

"Then make haste," said Spurling, as he drew his chair nearer the
window, and returned his gaze to the west.

Without the dark was falling, though the sky was still faintly stained
with red. It was thus he sat in the unlighted room as they talked
together through the night, a shadowy outline against the misty panes
which never stirred, but stared far away across the frozen quiet of
the land.

Granger spoke again. "You know with what hopes we set out on our
journey to Dawson; how we went there not for the greed of gold, but
for the sake of that other and more secret adventure which, as a boy,
I promised my father I would undertake when I grew to be a man--an
adventure which the Yukon gold could make possible and could purchase.
That was my frame of mind throughout all the time that we were poor up
there. That first winter in the Klondike, when we were nearly starved,
and our money gave out because our grub was exhausted and the price of
provisions ran so high, when we were thankful to work for almost any
wages on Wrath's diggings if only we might get food and keep warm, we
still kept our faith in one another and our purpose in sight. You'll
remember how we used to talk together throughout those long dark days
when, from November to February, we scarcely ever saw the sun and the
thermometer sometimes stood at fifty below, and how we would plan for
our great expedition to El Dorado, when our fortunes should be made,
comforting ourselves for our present privations with thoughts of the
land which Raleigh described. Those, despite their misery, were my
best days--I had hope then. Little Mordaunt would sit beside us, with
his face in his hands and his eyes opened wide with wonder, listening
to what we said; when we had finished he would beg us to take him
also, offering as his share, if he should be first to make his pile,
to pay the way for all of us. It was then that we three made the
compact which should be binding, that whenever our joint fortunes,
whether owned by one alone, or two, or in equal proportions by all
together, should amount to fifty thousand dollars, we would regard it
as common to us all, and, throwing up our workings, would leave the
Yukon for Guiana, in search of El Dorado. We were good comrades then,