, while she did not misshape them by
running with the dogs in her childhood.' But this explanation failed
utterly to allay Prince's admiration. Harrington's commercial instinct
was touched, and as he looked upon the exquisitely turned foot and
ankle, there ran through his mind the sordid list--'One rifle, one
blanket, twenty bottles of hooch.' Madeline was the wife of a king, a
king whose yellow treasure could buy outright a score of fashion's
puppets; yet in all her life her feet had known no gear save red-tanned
moosehide. At first she had looked in awe at the tiny white-satin
slippers; but she had quickly understood the admiration which shone,
manlike, in the eyes of the men. Her face flushed with pride. For the
moment she was drunken with her woman's loveliness; then she murmured,
with increased scorn, 'And one rifle, broke!' So the training went on.
Every day Malemute Kid led the girl out on long walks devoted to the
correction of her carriage and the shortening of her stride.

There was little likelihood of her identity being discovered, for Cal
Galbraith and the rest of the Old-Timers were like lost children among
the many strangers who had rushed into the land. Besides, the frost of
the North has a bitter tongue, and the tender women of the South, to
shield their cheeks from its biting caresses, were prone to the use of
canvas masks. With faces obscured and bodies lost in squirrel-skin
parkas, a mother and daughter, meeting on trail, would pass as
strangers.

The coaching progressed rapidly. At first it had been slow, but later a
sudden acceleration had manifested itself. This began from the moment
Madeline tried on the white-satin slippers, and in so doing found
herself. The pride of her renegade father, apart from any natural
self-esteem she might possess, at that instant received its birth.
Hitherto, she had deemed herself a woman of an alien breed, of inferior
stock, purchased by her lord's favor. Her husband had seemed to her a
god, who had lifted her, through no essential virtues on her part, to
his own godlike level. But she had never forgotten, even when Young Cal
was born, that she was not of his people. As he had been a god, so had
his womenkind been goddesses. She might have contrasted herself with
them, but she had never compared.

It might have been that familiarity bred contempt; however, be that as
it may, she had ultimately come to understand these roving white men,
and to weigh them.

True,