bored headlong into the blizzards and braved January's fiercest
rage; how his guides dropped and his dogs died in their collars. That
was how Folsom came.

He was thin and brown, the marks of the frost were bitten deep into
his flesh when, one evening in early March, he drove into Nome. He
had covered sixty miles on the last day's run, and his team was
staggering. He left the dogs in their harnesses, where they fell, and
bounded through the high-banked streets to Lois's cabin.

It was growing dark, a light gleamed from her window; Folsom glimpsed
her moving about inside. He paused to rip the ice from his bearded
lips, then he knocked softly, three times.

As he stood there a gentle north wind fanned him. It was deadly cold,
but it was fresh and clean and vastly invigorating. There was no
malice in it.

At his familiar signal he heard the clatter of a dish, dropped from
nerveless fingers, he heard a startled voice cry out his name, then he
pressed the latch and entered, smiling.

HIS STOCK IN TRADE

"The science of salesmanship is quite as exact as the science of
astronomy," said Mr. Gross, casting his eyes down the table to see
that he had the attention of the other boarders, "and much more
intricate. The successful salesman is as much an artist in his line as
the man who paints pictures or writes books."

"Oh, there's nothing so artistic as writing books," protested Miss
Harris, the manicurist. "Nothing except acting, perhaps. Actors are
artistic, too. But salesmen! I meet lots in my business, and I'm not
strong for them."

Mr. Gross smiled at her indulgently; it was an expression that became
him well, and he had rehearsed it often.

"The power to sell goods is a talent, my dear Miss Harris, just like
the power to invent machinery or to rule a city, or--or--to keep a set
of books. Don't you agree with me, Mrs. Green?"

Mrs. Green, the landlady, a brown, gray woman in black, smiled
frigidly. "You're _so_ original, Mr. Gross," said she, "it's a
pleasure to hear you, I'm sure."

Gross was an impressive talker, due to the fact that he plagiarized
office platitudes; he ran on pompously, dropping trade mottoes and
shop-worn bits of philosophy until young Mitchell, unable longer to
endure the light of admiration he saw in Miss Harris's eyes, rolled
up his napkin to the size of a croquette and interrupted by noisily
shoving back his chair and muttering under his breath:

"That stuff comes on printed ca