n of
equality, had robbed him of his reason. He felt, then, that this was a
new breed of woman; and ere they had been trail mates for many days he
knew why the sons of such women mastered the land and the sea, and why
the sons of his own womankind could not prevail against them. Tender
and soft! Day after day he watched her, muscle-weary, exhausted,
indomitable, and the words beat in upon him in a perennial refrain.
Tender and soft! He knew her feet had been born to easy paths and sunny
lands, strangers to the moccasined pain of the North, unkissed by the
chill lips of the frost, and he watched and marveled at them twinkling
ever through the weary day.

She had always a smile and a word of cheer, from which not even the
meanest packer was excluded. As the way grew darker she seemed to
stiffen and gather greater strength, and when Kah-Chucte and Gowhee,
who had bragged that they knew every landmark of the way as a child did
the skin bails of the tepee, acknowledged that they knew not where they
were, it was she who raised a forgiving voice amid the curses of the
men. She had sung to them that night till they felt the weariness fall
from them and were ready to face the future with fresh hope. And when
the food failed and each scant stint was measured jealously, she it was
who rebelled against the machinations of her husband and Sitka Charley,
and demanded and received a share neither greater nor less than that of
the others.

Sitka Charley was proud to know this woman. A new richness, a greater
breadth, had come into his life with her presence. Hitherto he had been
his own mentor, had turned to right or left at no man's beck; he had
moulded himself according to his own dictates, nourished his manhood
regardless of all save his own opinion. For the first time he had felt
a call from without for the best that was in him, just a glance of
appreciation from the clear-searching eyes, a word of thanks from the
clear-ringing voice, just a slight wreathing of the lips in the
wonderful smile, and he walked with the gods for hours to come. It was
a new stimulant to his manhood; for the first time he thrilled with a
conscious pride in his wisdom of the trail; and between the twain they
ever lifted the sinking hearts of their comrades. The faces of the two
men and the woman brightened as they saw him, for after all he was the
staff they leaned upon. But Sitka Charley, rigid as was his wont,
concealing pain and pleasure impartially