Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE WINDS OF CHANCE

By REX BEACH

Author of "THE SILVER HORDE" "THE SPOILERS" "THE IRON TRAIL" Etc.

CHAPTER I

With an ostentatious flourish Mr. "Lucky" Broad placed a crisp
ten-dollar bill in an eager palm outstretched across his folding-table.

"The gentleman wins and the gambler loses!" Mr. Broad proclaimed to the
world. "The eye is quicker than the hand, and the dealer's moans is
music to the stranger's ear." With practised touch he rearranged the
three worn walnut-shells which constituted his stock in trade. Beneath
one of them he deftly concealed a pellet about the size of a five-grain
allopathic pill. It was the erratic behavior of this tiny ball, its
mysterious comings and goings, that had summoned Mr. Broad's audience
and now held its observant interest. This audience, composed of roughly
dressed men, listened attentively to the seductive monologue which
accompanied the dealer's deft manipulations, and was greatly
entertained thereby. "Three tiny tepees in a row and a little black
medicine-man inside." The speaker's voice was high-pitched and it
carried like a "thirtythirty." "You see him walk in, you open the door,
and--you double your money. Awfully simple! Simpully awful! What? As I
live! The gentleman wins ten more--ten silver-tongued song-birds, ten
messengers of mirth--the price of a hard day's toil. Take it, sir, and
may it make a better and a stronger man of you. Times are good and I
spend my money free. I made it packin' grub to Linderman, four bits a
pound, but--easy come, easy go. Now then, who's next? You've seen me
work. I couldn't baffle a sore-eyed Siwash with snow-glasses."

Lucky Broad's three-legged table stood among some stumps beside the
muddy roadway which did service as the main street of Dyea and along
which flowed an irregular stream of pedestrians; incidental to his
practised manipulation of the polished walnut-shells he maintained an
unceasing chatter of the sort above set down. Now his voice was loud
and challenging, now it was apologetic, always it stimulated curiosity.
One moment he was jubilant and gay, again he was contrite and
querulous. Occasionally he burst forth into plaintive
self-denunciations.

Fixing a hypnotic gaze upon a bland, blue-eyed bystander who had just
joined the charmed circle, he murmured, invitingly: "Better try your
luck, Olaf. It's Danish dice--three chances to win and one to lose."

The object of his address shook his head. "Aye ant Danish, Aye ban
Norvegen," said he.

"Danish dice or Norwegian poker, they're both the same. I'll deal you a
free hand and it won't cost you a cent. Fix your baby blues on the
little ball and watch me close. Don't let me deceive you. Now then,
which hut hides the grain?"

Noting a half-dozen pairs of eyes upon him, the Norseman became
conscious that he was a center of interest. He grinned half-heartedly
and, after a brief hesitation, thrust forth a clumsy paw, lifted a
shell, and exposed the object of general curiosity.

"You guessed it!" There was commendation, there was pleased surprise,
in Mr. Broad's tone. "You can't fool a foreigner, can you, boys? My,
my! Ain't it lucky for me that we played for fun? But you got to give
me another chance, Lars; I'll fool you yet. In walks the little pill
once more, I make the magic pass, and you follow me attentively,
knowing in your heart of hearts that I'm a slick un. Now then, shoot,
Kid; you can't miss me!"

The onlookers stirred with interest; with eager fingers the artless
Norwegian fumbled in his pocket. At the last moment, however, he
thought better of his impulse, grunted once, then turned his back to
the table and walked away.

"Missed him!" murmured the dealer, with no display of feeling; then to
the group around him he announced, shamelessly: "You got to lead those
birds; they fly fast."

One of Mr. Broad's boosters, he who had twice won for the Norseman's
benefit, carelessly returned his winnings. "Sure!" he agreed. "They got
a head like a turtle, them Swedes."

Mr. Broad carefully smoothed out the two bills and reverently laid them
to rest in his bank-roll. "Yes, and they got bony mouths. You got to
set your hook or it won't hold."

"Slow pickin's," yawned an honest miner with a pack upon his back.
Attracted by the group at the table, he had dropped out of the
procession in the street and had paused long enough to win a bet or
two. Now he straightened himself and stretched his arms. "These Michael
Strogoffs is hep to the old stuff, Lucky. I'm thinking of joining the
big rush. They say this Klondike is some rich."

Inasmuch as there were no strangers in sight at the moment, the
proprietor of the deadfall gave up barking; he daintily folded and tore
in half a cigarette paper, out of which he fashioned a thin smoke for
himself. It was that well-earned moment of repose, that welcome recess
from the day's toil. Mr. Broad inhaled deeply, then he turned his eyes
upon the former speaker.

"You've been thinking again, have you?" He frowned darkly. With a note
of warning in his voice he declared: "You ain't strong enough for such
heavy work, Kid. That's why I've got you packing hay."

The object of this sarcasm hitched his shoulders and the movement
showed that his burden was indeed no more than a cunning counterfeit, a
bundle of hay rolled inside a tarpaulin.

"Oh, I got a head and I've been doing some heavy thinking with it," the
Kid retorted. "This here Dawson is going to be a good town. I'm getting
readied up to join the parade."

"Are you, now?" the shell-man mocked. "I s'pose you got it all framed
with the Canucks to let you through? I s'pose the chief of police knows
you and likes you, eh? You and him is cousins, or something?"

"Coppers is all alike; there's always a way to square 'em--"

"Lay off that 'squaring' stuff," cautioned a renegade crook, disguised
by a suit of mackinaws and a week's growth of beard into the likeness
of a stampeder. "A thousand bucks and a ton of grub, that's what the
sign says, and that's what it means. They wouldn't let you over the
Line with nine hundred and ninety-nine fifty."

"Right!" agreed a third capper. "It's a closed season on broken stiffs.
You can't monkey with the Mounted Police. When they put over an edict
it lays there till it freezes. They'll make you show your 'openers' at
the Boundary. Gee! If I had 'em I wouldn't bother to go 'inside.'
What's a guy want with more than a thousand dollars and a ton of grub,
anyhow?"

"All the same, I'm about set to hit the trail," stubbornly maintained
the man with the alfalfa pack. "I ain't broke. When you boys get to
Dawson, just ask for Kid Bridges' saloon and I'll open wine. These
woollys can have their mines; me for a hootch-mill on Main Street."

Lucky addressed his bevy of boosters. "Have I nursed a serpent in my
breast, or has the Kid met a banker's son? Gimme room, boys. I'm going
to shuffle the shells for him and let him double his money. Keep your
eye on the magic pea, Mr. Bridges. Three tiny tepees in a row--" There
was a general laugh as Broad began to shift the walnut-shells, but Kid
Bridges retorted, contemptuously:

"That's the trouble with all you wiseacres. You get a dollar ahead and
you fall for another man's game. I never knew a faro-dealer that
wouldn't shoot craps. No, I haven't met no banker's son and I ain't
likely to in this place. These pilgrims have sewed their money in their
underclothes, and they sleep with their eyes open. Seems like they'd go
blind, but they don't. These ain't Rubes, Lucky; they're city folks.
They've seen three-ringed circuses and three-shell games, and all that
farmer stuff. They've been 'gypped,' and it's an old story to 'em."

"You're dead right," Broad acknowledged. "That's why it's good. D'you
know the best town in America for the shells? Little old New York. If
the cops would let me set up at the corner of Broad and Wall, I'd own
the Stock Exchange in a week. Madison and State is another good stand;
so's Market and Kearney, or Pioneer Square, down by the totem pole. New
York, Chicago, 'Frisco, Seattle, they're all hick towns. For every city
guy that's been stung by a bee there's a hundred that still thinks
honey comes from a fruit. This rush is just starting, and the bigger it
grows the better we'll do. Say, Kid, if you mush over to Tagish with
that load of timothy on your spine, the police will put you on the
wood-pile for the winter."

While Mr. Lucky Broad and his business associates were thus busied in
discussing the latest decree of the Northwest Mounted Police, other
townsmen of theirs were similarly engaged. Details of this
proclamation--the most arbitrary of any, hitherto--had just arrived
from the International Boundary, and had caused a halt, an eddy, in the
stream of gold-seekers which flowed inland toward the Chilkoot Pass. A
human tide was setting northward from the States, a tide which swelled
and quickened daily as the news of George Carmack's discovery spread
across the world, but at Healy & Wilson's log-store, where the notice
above referred to had been posted, the stream slowed. A crowd of
new-comers from the barges and steamers in the roadstead had assembled
there, and now gave voice to hoarse indignation and bitter resentment.
Late arrivals from Skagway, farther down the coast, brought word of
similar scenes at that point and a similar feeling of dismay; they
reported a similar increase in the general excitement, too. There, as
here, a tent city was springing up, the wooded hills were awakening to
echoes of unaccustomed life, a thrill and a stir were running through
the wilderness and the odor of spruce fires was growing heavier with
every ship that came.

Pierce Phillips emerged from the trading-post and, drawn by the force
of gravitation, joined the largest and the most excited group of
Argonauts. He was still somewhat dazed by his perusal of that Police
edict; the blow to his hopes was still too stunning, his disappointment
was still too keen, to permit of clear thought.

"A ton of provisions and a thousand dollars!" he repeated, blankly.
Why, that was absurd, out of all possible reason! It would bar the way
to fully half this rushing army; it would turn men back at the very
threshold of the golden North. Nevertheless, there stood the notice in
black and white, a clear and unequivocal warning from the Canadian
authorities, evidently designed to forestall famine on the foodless
Yukon. From the loud arguments round about him Phillips gathered that
opinion on the justice of the measure was about evenly divided; those
fortunate men who had come well provided commended it heartily, those
less fortunate fellows who were sailing close-hauled were equally noisy
in their denunciation of it. The latter could see in this precautionary
ruling nothing except the exercise of a tyrannical power aimed at their
ruin, and in consequence they voiced threats, and promises of violence
the which Phillips put down as mere resentful mouthings of no actual
significance. As for himself, he had never possessed anything like a
thousand dollars at one time, therefore the problem of acquiring such a
prodigious sum in the immediate future presented appalling
difficulties. He had come north to get rich, only to find that it was
necessary to be rich in order to get north. A fine situation, truly! A
ton of provisions would cost at least five hundred dollars and the
expense of transporting it across summer swamps and tundras, then up
and over that mysterious and forbidding Chilkoot of which he had heard
so much, would bring the total capital required up to impossible
proportions. The prospect was indeed dismaying. Phillips had been
ashore less than an hour, but already he had gained some faint idea of
the country that lay ahead of him; already he had noted the almost
absolute lack of transportation; already he had learned the price of
packers, and as a result he found himself at an impasse.

One thousand dollars and two hundred pounds! It was enough to dash high
hopes. And yet, strangely enough, Phillips was not discouraged. He was
rather surprised at his own rebound after the first shock; his
reasonless optimism vaguely amazed him, until, in contemplating the
matter, he discovered that his thoughts were running somewhat after
this fashion:

"They told me I couldn't make it; they said something was sure to
happen. Well, it has. I'm up against it--hard. Most fellows would quit
and go home, but I sha'n't. I'm going to win out, somehow, for this is
the real thing. This is Life, Adventure. It will be wonderful to look
back and say: 'I did it. Nothing stopped me. I landed at Dyea with one
hundred and thirty-five dollars, but look at me now!'"

Thoughts such as these were in his mind, and their resolute nature must
have been reflected in his face, for a voice aroused him from his
meditations.

"It don't seem to faze you much, partner. I s'pose you came heeled?"
Phillips looked up and into a sullen, angry face.

"It nearly kills me," he smiled. "I'm the worst-heeled man in the
crowd."

"Well, it's a darned outrage. A ton of grub? Why, have you seen the
trail? Take a look; it's a man-killer, and the rate is forty cents a
pound to Linderman. It'll go to fifty now--maybe a dollar--and there
aren't enough packers to handle half the stuff."

"Things are worse at Skagway," another man volunteered. "I came up
yesterday, and they're losing a hundred head of horses a day--bogging
'em down and breaking their legs. You can walk on dead carcasses from
the Porcupine to the Summit."

A third stranger, evidently one of the well-provided few, laughed
carelessly. "If you boys can't stand the strain you'd better stay where
you are," said he. "Grub's sky-high in Dawson, and mighty short. I knew
what I was up against, so I came prepared. Better go home and try it
next summer."

The first speaker, he of the sullen visage, turned his back, muttering,
resentfully: "Another wise guy! They make me sick! I've a notion to go
through anyhow."

"Don't try that," cautioned the man from Skagway. "If you got past the
Police they'd follow you to hell but what they'd bring you back. They
ain't like our police."

Still meditating his plight, Pierce Phillips edged out of the crowd and
walked slowly down the street. It was not a street at all, except by
courtesy, for it was no more than an open waterfront faced by a few log
buildings and a meandering line of new white tents. Tents were going up
everywhere and all of them bore painful evidence of their newness. So
did the clothes of their owners for that matter--men's garments still
bore their price-tags. The beach was crowded with piles of merchandise
over which there was much wrangling, barges plying regularly back and
forth from the anchored ships added hourly to the confusion. As outfits
were dumped upon the sand their owners assembled them and bore them
away to their temporary camp sites. In this occupation every man faced
his own responsibilities single-handed, for there were neither drays
nor carts nor vehicles of any sort.

As Phillips looked on at the disorder along the water's edge, as he
stared up the fir-flanked Dyea valley, whither a steady stream of
traffic flowed, he began to feel a fretful eagerness to join in it, to
be up and going. 'Way yonder through those hills towered the Chilkoot,
and beyond that was the mighty river rushing toward Dawson City, toward
Life and Adventure, for that was what the gold-fields signified to
Phillips. Yes, Life! Adventure! He had set out to seek them, to taste
the flavor of the world, and there it lay--his world, at least--just
out of reach. A fierce impatience, a hot resentment at that senseless
restriction which chained him in his tracks, ran through the boy. What
right had any one to stop him here at the very door, when just inside
great things were happening? Past that white-and-purple barrier which
he could see against the sky a new land lay, a radiant land of promise,
of mystery, and of fascination; Pierce vowed that he would not, could
not, wait. Fortunes would reward the first arrivals; how, then, could
he permit these other men to precede him? The world was a good
place--it would not let a person starve.

To the young and the foot-free Adventure lurks just over the hill; Life
opens from the crest of the very next divide. It matters not that we
never quite come up with either, that we never quite attain the summit
whence our promises are realized; the ever-present expectation, the
eager straining forward, is the breath of youth. It was that breath
which Phillips now felt in his nostrils. It was pungent, salty.

He noted a group of people gathered about some center of attraction
whence issued a high-pitched intonation.

"Oh, look at the cute little pea! Klondike croquet, the packer's
pastime. Who'll risk a dollar to win a dollar? It's a healthy sport.
It's good for young and old--a cheeild can understand it. Three Eskimo
igloos and an educated pill!"

"A shell-game!" Pierce Phillips halted in his tracks and stared
incredulously, then he smiled. "A shell-game, running wide open on the
main street of the town!" This WAS the frontier, the very edge of
things. With an odd sense of unreality he felt the world turn back ten
years. He had seen shell-games at circuses and fairgrounds when he was
much younger, but he supposed they had long since been abandoned in
favor of more ingenious and less discreditable methods of robbery.
Evidently, however, there were some gulls left, for this device
appeared to be well patronized. Still doubting the evidence of his
ears, he joined the group.

"The gentleman wins and the gambler loses!" droned the dealer as he
paid a bet. "Now then, we're off for another journey. Who'll ride with
me this time?"

Phillips was amazed that any one could be so simple-minded as to
squander his money upon such a notoriously unprofitable form of
entertainment. Nevertheless, men were playing, and they did not seem to
suspect that the persons whom the dealer occasionally paid were his
confederates.

The operator maintained an incessant monologue. At the moment of
Pierce's arrival he was directing it at an ox-eyed individual,
evidently selected to be the next victim. The fellow was stupid,
nevertheless he exercised some caution at first. He won a few dollars,
then he lost a few, but, alas! the gambling fever mounted in him and
greed finally overcame his hesitation. With an eager gesture he chose a
shell and Phillips felt a glow of satisfaction at the realization that
the man had once more guessed aright. Drawing forth a wallet, the
fellow laid it on the table.

"I'll bet the lump," he cried.

The dealer hesitated. "How much you got in that alligator valise?"

"Two hundred dollars."

"Two hundred berries on one bush!" The proprietor of the game was
incredulous. "Boys, he aims to leave me cleaner than a snow-bird."
Seizing the walnut-shell between his thumb and forefinger, he turned it
over, but instead of exposing the elusive pellet he managed, by an
almost imperceptible forward movement, to roll it out from under its
hiding-place and to conceal it between his third and fourth fingers.
The stranger was surprised, dumfounded, at sight of the empty shell. He
looked on open-mouthed while his wallet was looted of its contents.

"Every now and then I win a little one," the gambler announced as he
politely returned the bill-case to its owner. He lifted another shell,
and by some sleight-of-hand managed to replace the pellet upon the
table, then gravely flipped a five-dollar gold piece to one of his
boosters.

Phillips's eyes were quick; from where he stood he had detected the
maneuver and it left him hot with indignation. He felt impelled to tell
the victim how he had been robbed, but thought better of the impulse
and assured himself that this was none of his affair. For perhaps ten
minutes he looked on while the sheep-shearing proceeded.

After a time there came a lull and the dealer raised his voice to
entice new patrons. Meanwhile, he paused to roll a cigarette the size
of a wheat straw. While thus engaged there sounded the hoarse blast of
a steamer's whistle in the offing and he turned his head. Profiting by
this instant of inattention a hand reached across the table and lifted
one of the walnut-shells. There was nothing under it.

"Five bucks on this one!" A soiled bill was placed beside one of the
two remaining shells, the empty one.

Thus far Phillips had followed the pea unerringly, therefore he was
amazed at the new better's mistake.

The dealer turned back to his layout and winked at the bystanders,
saying, "Brother, I'll bet you ten more that you've made a bad bet."
His offer was accepted. Simultaneously Phillips was seized with an
intense desire to beat this sharper at his own game; impulsively he
laid a protecting palm over the shell beneath which he knew the little
sphere to lie.

"I'll pick this one," he heard himself say.

"Better let me deal you a new hand," the gambler suggested.

"Nothing of the sort," a man at Phillips' shoulder broke in. "Hang on
to that shell, kid. You're right and I'm going down for the size of his
bankroll." The speaker was evidently a miner, for he carried a bulky
pack upon his shoulders. He placed a heavy palm over the back of
Phillips' hand, then extracted from the depths of his overalls a fat
roll of paper money.

The size of this wager, together with the determination of its owner,
appeared briefly to nonplus the dealer. He voiced a protest, but the
miner forcibly overbore it:

"Say, I eat up this shell stuff!" he declared. "It's my meat, and I've
trimmed every tinhorn that ever came to my town. There's three hundred
dollars; you cover it, and you cover this boy's bet, too." The fellow
winked reassuringly at Phillips. "You heard him say the sky was his
limit, didn't you? Well, let's see how high the sky is in these parts!"

There was a movement in the crowd, whereupon the speaker cried,
warningly: "Boosters, stand back! Don't try to give us the elbow, or
I'll close up this game!" To Pierce he murmured, confidentially: "We've
got him right. Don't let anybody edge you out." He put more weight upon
Phillips' hand and forced the young man closer to the table.

Pierce had no intention of surrendering his place, and now the
satisfaction of triumphing over these crooks excited him. He continued
to cover the walnut-shell while with his free hand he drew his own
money from his pocket. He saw that the owner of the game was suffering
extreme discomfort at this checkmate, and he enjoyed the situation.

"I watched you trim that farmer a few minutes ago," Phillips' companion
chuckled. "Now I'm going to make you put up or shut up. There's my
three hundred. I can use it when it grows to six."

"How much are you betting?" the dealer inquired of Phillips.

Pierce had intended merely to risk a dollar or two, but now there came
to him a thrilling thought. That notice at Healy & Wilson's store
flashed into his mind. "One thousand dollars and a ton of food," the
sign had read. Well, why not bet and bet heavy? he asked himself. Here
was a chance to double his scanty capital at the expense of a rogue. To
beat a barefaced chater at his own game surely could not be considered
cheating; in this instance it was mere retribution.

He had no time to analyze the right or the wrong of his reasoning--at
best the question would bear debate. Granting that it wasn't exactly
honest, what did such nice considerations weigh when balanced against
the stern necessities of this hour? A stranger endeavored to shove him
away from the table and this clinched his decision. He'd make them play
fair. With a sweep of his free arm. Phillips sent the fellow staggering
back and then placed his entire roll of bills on the table in front of
the dealer.

"There's mine," he said, shortly. "One hundred and thirty-five dollars.
I don't have to count it, for I know it by heart."

"Business appears to be picking up," murmured the proprietor of the
game.

Phillips' neighbor continued to hold the boy's hand in a vicelike grip.
Now he leaned forward, saying:

"Look here! Are you going to cover our coin or am I going to smoke you
up?"

"The groans of the gambler is sweet music in their ears!" The dealer
shrugged reluctantly and counted out four hundred and thirty-five
dollars, which he separated into two piles.

A certain shame at his action swept over Phillips when he felt his
companion's grasp relax and heard him say, "Turn her over, kid."

This was diamond cut diamond, of course; nevertheless, it was a
low-down trick and--

Pierce Phillips started, he examined the interior of the walnut-shell
in bewilderment, for he had lifted it only to find it quite empty.

"Every now and then I win a little one," the dealer intoned, gravely
pocketing his winnings. "It only goes to show you that the hand--"

"Damnation!" exploded the man at Phillips' side. "Trimmed for three
hundred, or I'm a goat!"

As Pierce walked away some one fell into step with him; it was the
sullen, black-browed individual he had seen at the trading-post.

"So they took you for a hundred and thirty-five, eh? You must be
rolling in coin," the man observed.

Even yet Pierce was more than a little dazed. "Do you know," said he,
"I was sure I had the right shell."

"Why, of course you had the right one." The stranger laughed shortly.
"They laid it up for you on purpose, then Kid Bridges worked a shift
when he held your hand. You can't beat 'em."

Pierce halted. "Was he--was THAT fellow with the pack a booster?"

"Certainly. They're all boosters. The Kid carries enough hay on his
back to feed a team. It's his bed. I've been here a week and I know
'em." The speaker stared in surprise at Phillips, who had broken into a
hearty laugh. "Look here! A little hundred and thirty-five must be
chicken feed to you. If you've got any more to toss away, toss it in my
direction."

"That's what makes it so funny. You see, I haven't any more. That was
my last dollar. Well, it serves me right. Now I can start from scratch
and win on my own speed."

The dark-browed man studied Phillips curiously. "You're certain'y
game," he announced. "I s'pose now you'll be wanting to sell some of
your outfit. That's why I've been hanging around that game. I've picked
up quite a bit of stuff that way, but I'm still short a few things and
I'll buy--"

"I haven't a pound of grub. I came up second-class."

"Huh! Then you'll go back steerage."

"Oh no, I won't! I'm going on to Dawson." There was a momentary
silence. "You say you've been here a week? Put me up for the
night--until I get a job. Will you?"

The black-eyed man hesitated, then he grinned. "You've got your nerve,
but--I'm blamed if I don't like it," said he. "My brother Jim is
cooking supper now. Suppose we go over to the tent and ask him."

CHAPTER II

The headwaters of the Dyea River spring from a giant's punch-bowl.
Three miles above timber-line the valley bottom widens out into a
flinty field strewn with boulders which in ages past have lost their
footing on the steep hills forming the sides of the cup. Between these
boulders a thin carpet of moss is spread, but the slopes themselves are
quite naked; they are seamed and cracked and weather-beaten, their
surfaces are split and shattered from the play of the elements. High up
toward the crest of one of them rides a glacier--a pallid, weeping
sentinel which stands guard for the great ice-caps beyond. Winter
snows, summer fogs and rains have washed the hillsides clean; they are
leached out and they present a lifeless, forbidding front to travelers.
In many places the granite fragments which still encumber them lie
piled one above another in such titanic chaos as to discourage man's
puny efforts to climb over them. Nevertheless, men have done so, and by
the thousands, by the tens of thousands. On this particular morning an
unending procession of human beings was straining up and over and
through the confusion. They lifted themselves by foot and by hand;
where the slope was steepest they crept on all-fours. They formed an
unbroken, threadlike stream extending from timberline to crest, each
individual being dwarfed to microscopic proportions by the size of his
surroundings. They flowed across the floor of the valley, then slowly,
very slowly, they flowed up its almost perpendicular wall. Now they
were lost to sight; again they reappeared clambering over glacier scars
or toiling up steep, rocky slides; finally they emerged away up under
the arch of the sky.

Looking down from the roof of the pass itself, the scene was doubly
impressive, for the wooded valley lay outstretched clear to the sea,
and out of it came that long, wavering line of ants. They did, indeed,
appear to be ants, those men, as they dragged themselves across the
meadow and up the ascent; they resembled nothing more than a file of
those industrious insects creeping across the bottom and up the sides
of a bath-tub, and the likeness was borne out by the fact that all
carried burdens. That was in truth the marvel of the scene, for every
man on the Chilkoot was bent beneath a back-breaking load.

Three miles down the gulch, where the upward march of the forests had
been halted, there, among scattered outposts of scrubby spruce and
wind-twisted willow, stood a village, a sprawling, formless aggregation
of flimsy tents and green logs known as Sheep Camp. Although it was a
temporary, makeshift town, already it bulked big in the minds of men
from Maine to California, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, for it was
the last outpost of civilization, and beyond it lay a land of mystery.
Sheep Camp had become famous by reason of the fact that it was linked
with the name of that Via Dolorosa, that summit of despair, the
Chilkoot. Already it had come to stand for the weak man's ultimate
mile-post, the end of many journeys.

The approach from the sea was easy, if twelve miles of boulder and bog,
of swamp and nigger-head, of root and stump, can be called easy under
the best of circumstances; but easy it was as compared with what lay
beyond and above it. Nevertheless, many Argonauts had never penetrated
even thus far, and of those who had, a considerable proportion had
turned back at the giant pit three miles above. One look at the
towering barrier had been enough for them. The Chilkoot was more than a
mountain, more than an obstacle of nature; it was a Presence, a
tremendous and a terrifying Personality which overshadowed the minds of
men and could neither be ignored at the time nor forgotten later. No
wonder, then, that Sheep Camp, which was a part of the Chilkoot,
represented, a sort of acid test; no wonder that those who had moved
their outfits thus far were of the breed the Northland loves--the stout
of heart and of body.

Provisions were cached at frequent intervals all the way up from the
sea, but in the open meadow beneath the thousand-foot wall an immense
supply depot had sprung up. This pocket in the hills had become an
open-air commissary, stocked with every sort of provender and gear.
There were acres of sacks and bundles, of boxes and bales, of lumber
and hardware and perishable stuffs, and all day long men came and went
in relays. One relay staggered up and out of the canon and dropped its
packs, another picked up the bundles and ascended skyward. Pound by
pound, ton by ton, this vast equipment of supplies went forward, but
slowly, oh, so slowly! And at such effort! It was indeed fit work for
ants, for it arrived nowhere and it never ended. Antlike, these
burden-bearers possessed but one idea--to fetch and to carry; they
traveled back and forth along the trail until they wore it into a
bottomless bog, until every rock, every tree, every landmark along it
became hatefully familiar and their eyes grew sick from seeing them.

The character of then--labor and its monotony, even in this short time,
had changed the men's characters--they had become pack-animals and they
deported themselves as such. All labor-saving devices, all mechanical
aids, all short cuts to comfort and to accomplishment, had been left
behind; here was the wilderness, primitive, hostile, merciless. Every
foot they moved, every ounce they carried, was at the cost of muscular
exertion. It was only natural that they should take on the color of
their surroundings.

Money lost its value a mile above Sheep Camp said became a thing of
weight, a thing to carry. The standard of value was the pound, and men
thought in hundredweights or in tons. Yet there was no relief, no
respite, for famine stalked in the Yukon and the Northwest Mounted were
on guard, hence these unfortunates were chained to their grub-piles as
galley-slaves are shackled to their benches.

Toe to heel, like peons rising from the bowels of a mine, they bent
their backs and strained up that riven rock wall. Blasphemy and pain,
high hopes and black despair, hearts overtaxed and eyes blind with
fatigue, that was what the Chilkoot stood for. Permeating the entire
atmosphere of the place, so that even the dullest could feel it, was a
feverish haste, an apprehensive demand for speed, more speed, to keep
ahead of the pressing thousands coming on behind.

Pierce Phillips breasted the last rise to the Summit, slipped his
pack-straps, and flung himself full length upon the ground. His lungs
felt as if they were bursting, the blood surged through his veins until
he rocked, his body streamed with sweat, and his legs were as heavy as
if molded from solid iron. He was pumped out, winded; nevertheless, he
felt his strength return with magic swiftness, for he possessed that
marvelous recuperative power of youth, and, like some fabled warrior,
new strength flowed into him from the earth. Round about him other men
were sprawled; some lay like corpses, others were propped against their
packs, a few stirred and sighed like the sorely wounded after a charge.
Those who had lain longest rose, took up their burdens, and went
groaning over the sky-line and out of sight. Every moment new faces,
purple with effort or white with exhaustion, rose out of the
depths--all were bitten deep with lines of physical suffering. On
buckled knees their owners lurched forward to find resting-places; in
their eyes burned a sullen rage; in their mouths were foul curses at
this Devil's Stairway. There were striplings and graybeards in the
crowd, strong men and weak men, but here at the Summit all were alike
in one particular--they lacked breath for anything except oaths.

Here, too, as in the valley beneath, was another great depot of
provision piles. Near where Phillips had thrown himself down there was
one man whose bearing was in marked contrast to that of the others. He
sat astride a bulging canvas bag in a leather harness, and in spite of
the fact that the mark of a tump-line showed beneath his cap he
betrayed no signs of fatigue. He was not at all exhausted, and from the
interest he displayed it seemed that he had chosen this spot as a
vantage-point from which to study the upcoming file rather than as a
place in which to rest. This he did with a quick, appreciative eye and
with a genial smile. In face, in dress, in manner, he was different.
For one thing, he was of foreign birth, and yet he appeared to be more
a piece of the country than any man Pierce had seen. His clothes were
of a pattern common among the native packers, but he wore them with a
free, unconscious grace all his own. From the peak of his Canadian
toque there depended a tassel which bobbed when he talked; his boots
were of Indian make, and they were soft and light and waterproof; a
sash of several colors was knotted about his waist. But it was not
alone his dress which challenged the eye--there was something in this
fellow's easy, open bearing which arrested attention. His dark skin had
been deepened by windburn, his well-set, well-shaped head bore a
countenance both eager and intelligent, a countenance that fairly
glowed with confidence and good humor.

Oddly enough, he sang as he sat upon his pack. High up on this
hillside, amid blasphemous complaints, he hummed a gay little song:

       "Chante, rossignol, chante!
        Toi qui a le coeur gai!
        Tu as le coeur a rire
        Mai j'l'ai-t-a pleurer,"

ran his chanson.

Phillips had seen the fellow several times, and the circumstances of
their first encounter had been sufficiently unusual to impress
themselves upon his mind. Pierce had been resting here, at this very
spot, when the Canuck had come up into sight, bearing a hundred-pound
pack without apparent effort. Two flour-sacks upon a man's back was a
rare sight on the roof of the Chilkoot. There were not many who could
master that slope with more than one, but this fellow had borne his
burden without apparent effort; and what was even more remarkable, what
had caused Pierce Phillips to open his eyes in genuine astonishment,
was the fact that the man climbed with a pipe in his teeth and smoked
it with relish. On that occasion the Frenchman had not stopped at the
crest to breathe, but had merely paused long enough to admire the scene
outspread beneath him; then he had swung onward. Of all the sights
young Phillips had beheld in this new land, the vision of that huge,
unhurried Canadian, smoking, had impressed him deepest. It had awakened
his keen envy, too, for Pierce was beginning to glory in his own
strength. A few days later they had rested near each other on the Long
Lake portage. That is, Phillips had rested; the Canadian, it seemed,
had a habit of pausing when and where the fancy struck him. His reason
for stopping there had been the antics of a peculiarly fearless and
impertinent "camp-robber." With a crust of bread he had tolled the bird
almost within his reach and was accepting its scolding with intense
amusement. Having both teased and made friends with the creature, he
finally gave it the crust and resumed his journey.

This was a land where brawn was glorified; the tales told oftenest
around the stoves at Sheep Camp had to do with feats of strength or
endurance, they were stories of mighty men and mighty packs, of long
marches and of grim staying powers. Already the names of certain
"old-timers" like Dinsmore and McDonald and Peterson and Stick Jim had
become famous because of some conspicuous exploit. Dinsmore, according
to the legend, had once lugged a hundred and sixty pounds to the
Summit; McDonald had bent a horseshoe in his hands; Peterson had lifted
the stem-piece out of a poling-boat lodged on the rocks below White
Horse; Stick Jim had run down a moose and killed it with his knife.

From what Phillips had seen of this French Canadian it was plain that
he, too, was an "old-timer," one of that Jovian band of supermen who
had dared the dark interior and robbed the bars of Forty Mile in the
hard days before the El Dorado discovery. Since this was their first
opportunity of exchanging speech, Phillips ventured to address the man.

"I thought I had a load this morning, but I'd hate to swap packs with
you," he said.

The Frenchman flashed him a smile which exposed a row of teeth
snow-white against his tan. "Ho! You're stronger as me. I see you
plenty tams biffore."

This was indeed agreeable praise, and Pierce showed his pleasure. "Oh
no!" he modestly protested. "I'm just getting broken in."

"Look out you don' broke your back," warned the other. "Dis Chilkoot
she's bad bizness. She's keel a lot of dese sof' fellers. Dey get seeck
in de back. You hear 'bout it?"

"Spinal meningitis. It's partly from exposure."

"Dat's him! Don' never carry too moch; don' be in soch hurry."

Phillips laughed at this caution. "Why, we have to hurry," said he.
"New people are coming all the time and they'll beat us in if we don't
look out."

His comrade shrugged. "Mebbe so; but s'posin' dey do. Wat's de hodds?
She's beeg countree; dere's plenty claims."

"Are there, really?" Phillips' eyes brightened. "You're an old-timer;
you've been 'inside.' Do you mean there's plenty of gold for all of us?"

"Dere ain't 'nuff gold in all de worl' for some people."

"I mean is Dawson as rich as they say it is?"

"Um--m! I don' know."

"Didn't you get in on the strike?"

"I hear 'bout 'im, but I'm t'inkin' 'bout oder t'ings."

Phillips regarded the speaker curiously. "That's funny. What business
are you in?"

"My bizness? Jus' livin'." The Canadian's eyes twinkled. "You don'
savvy, eh--? Wal, dat's biccause you're lak dese oder feller--you're in
beeg hurry to be reech. Me--?" He shrugged his brawny shoulders and
smiled cheerily. "I got plenty tam. I'm loafer. I enjoy myse'f--"

"So do I. For that matter, I'm enjoying myself now. I think this is all
perfectly corking, and I'm having the time of my young life. Why, just
think, over there"--Pierce waved his hand toward the northward panorama
of white peaks and purple valleys--"everything is unknown!" His face
lit up with some restless desire which the Frenchman appeared to
understand, for he nodded seriously. "Sometimes it scares me a little."

"Wat you scare' 'bout, you?"

"Myself, I suppose. Sometimes I'm afraid I haven't the stuff in me to
last."

"Dat's good sign." The speaker slipped his arms into his pack-harness
and adjusted the tumpline to his forehead preparatory to rising. "You
goin' mak' good 'sourdough' lak me. You goin' love de woods and de
hills wen you know 'em. I can tell. Wal, I see you bimeby at Wite
'Orse."

"White Horse? Is that where you're going?"

"Yes. I'm batteau man; I'm goin' be pilot."

"Isn't that pretty dangerous work? They say those rapids are awful."

"Sure! Everybody scare' to try 'im. W'en I came up dey pay me fifty
dollar for tak' one boat t'rough. By gosh! I never mak' so moch
money--tree hondred dollar a day. I'm reech man now. You lak get reech
queeck? I teach you be pilot. Swif' water, beeg noise! Plenty fun in
dat!" The Canadian threw back his head and laughed loudly. "W'at you
say?"

"I wouldn't mind trying it," Pierce confessed, "but I have no outfit.
I'm packing for wages. I'll be along when I get my grub-stake together."

"Good! I go purty queeck now. W'en you come, I tak' you t'rough de
canyon free. In one day I teach you be good pilot. You ask for 'Poleon
Doret. Remember?"

"I say!" Phillips halted the cheerful giant as he was about to rise.
"Do you know, you're the first man who has offered to do me a favor;
you're the only one who hasn't tried to hold me back and climb over me.
You're the first man I've seen with--with a smile on his face."

The speaker nodded. "I know! It's peety, too. Dese poor feller is
scare', lak' you. Dey don' onderstan'. But bimeby, dey get wise; dey
learn to he'p de oder feller, dey learn dat a smile will carry a pack
or row a boat. You remember dat. A smile and a song, she'll shorten de
miles and mak' fren's wid everybody. Don' forget w'at I tell you."

"Thank you, I won't," said Pierce, with a flicker of amusement at the
man's brief sermon. This Doret was evidently a sort of backwoods
preacher.

"Adieu!" With another flashing smile and a wave of his hand the fellow
joined the procession and went on over the crest.

It had been pleasant to exchange even these few friendly words, for of
late the habit of silence had been forced upon Pierce Phillips. For
weeks now he had toiled among reticent men who regarded him with
hostility, who made way for him with reluctance. Haste, labor, strain
had numbed and brutalized them; fatigue had rendered them irritable,
and the strangeness of their environment had made them both fearful and
suspicious. There was no good-fellowship, no consideration on the
Chilkoot. This was a race against time, and the stakes went to him who
was most ruthless. Phillips had not exaggerated. Until this morning, he
had received no faintest word of encouragement, no slightest offer of
help. Not once had a hand been outstretched to him, and every inch he
had gained had been won at the cost of his own efforts and by reason of
his own determination.

He was yet warm with a wordless gratitude at the Frenchman's cheer when
a figure came lurching toward him and fell into the space Doret had
vacated. This man was quite the opposite of the one who had just left;
he was old and he was far from robust. He fell face downward and lay
motionless. Impulsively Phillips rose and removed the new-comer's pack.

"That last lift takes it out of you, doesn't it?" he inquired,
sympathetically.

After a moment the stranger lifted a thin, colorless face overgrown
with a bushy gray beard and began to curse in a gasping voice.

The youth warned him. "You're only tiring yourself, my friend. It's all
down-hill from here."

The sufferer regarded Phillips from a pair of hard, smoky-blue eyes in
which there lurked both curiosity and surprise.

"I say!" he panted. "You're the first white man I've met in two weeks."

Pierce laughed. "It's the result of a good example. A fellow was decent
to me just now."

"This is the kind of work that gives a man dead babies," groaned the
stranger. "And these darned trail-hogs!" He ground his teeth
vindictively. "'Get out of the way!' 'Hurry up, old man!' 'Step lively,
grandpa!' That's what they say. They snap at your heels like coyotes.
Hurry? You can't force your luck!" The speaker struggled into a sitting
posture and in an apologetic tone explained: "I dassent lay down or
I'll get rheumatism. Tough guys--frontiersmen--Pah!" He spat out the
exclamation with disgust, then closed his eyes again and sank back
against his burden. "Coyotes! That's what they are! They'd rob a
carcass, they'd gnaw each other's bones to get through ahead of the
ice."

Up out of the chasm below came a slow-moving file of Indian packers.
Their eyes were bent upon the ground, and they stepped noiselessly into
one another's tracks. The only sound they made came from their creaking
pack-leathers. They paused briefly to breathe and to take in their
surroundings, then they went on and out of sight.

When they had disappeared the stranger spoke in a changed tone. "Poor
devils! I wonder what they've done. And you?" he turned to Phillips.
"What sins have you committed?"

"Oh, just the ordinary ones. But I don't look at it that way. This is a
sort of a lark for me, and I'm having a great time. It's pretty fierce,
I'll admit, but--I wouldn't miss it for anything. Would you?"

"WOULD I? In a minute! You're young, I'm old. I've got rheumatism
and--a partner. He can't pack enough grub for his own lunch, and I have
to do it all. He's a Jonah, too--born on Friday, or something. Last
night somebody stole a sack of our bacon. Sixty pounds, and every pound
had cost me sweat!" Again the speaker ground his teeth vindictively.
"Lord! I'd like to catch the fellow that did it! I'd take a drop of
blood for every drop of sweat that bacon cost. Have you lost anything?"

"I haven't anything to lose. I'm packing for wages to earn money enough
to buy an outfit."

After a brief survey of Phillips' burden, the stranger said, enviously:
"Looks like you wouldn't have to make more than a trip or two. I wish I
could pack like you do, but I'm stove up. At that, I'm better than my
partner! He couldn't carry a tune." There was a pause. "He eats good,
though; eats like a hired man and he snores so I can't sleep. I just
lie awake nights and groan at the joints and listen to him grow old. He
can't even guard our grub-pile."

"The Vigilantes will put a stop to this stealing," Pierce ventured.

"Think so? Who's going to keep an eye on them? Who's going to strangle
the Stranglers? Chances are they're the very ones that are lifting our
grub. I know these citizens' committees." Whatever the physical
limitations of the rheumatic Argonaut, it was plain that his temper was
active and his resentment strong.

Phillips had cooled off by this time; in fact, the chill breath of the
snow-fields had begun to penetrate his sodden clothing, therefore he
prepared to take up his march.

"Going through to Linderman?" queried the other man. "So am I. If
you'll wait a second I'll join you. Maybe we can give each other a
hand."

The speaker's motive was patent; nevertheless, Phillips obligingly
acceded to his request, and a short time later assisted him into his
harness, whereupon they set out one behind the other. Pierce's pack was
at least double the weight of his companion's, and it gave him a
pleasurable thrill to realize that he was one of the strong, one of the
elect; he wondered pityingly how long this feeble, middle-aged man
could last.

Before they had tramped far, however, he saw that the object of his
pity possessed a quality which was lacking in many of the younger,
stronger stampeders--namely, a grim determination, a dogged
perseverance--no poor substitute, indeed, for youth and brawn. Once the
man was in motion he made no complaint, and he managed to maintain a
very good pace.

Leaving the crest of Chilkoot behind them, the travelers bore to the
right across the snowcap, then followed the ridge above Crater Lake.
Every mile or two they rested briefly to relieve their chafed and
aching shoulders. They exchanged few words while they were in motion,
for one soon learns to conserve his forces on the trail, but when they
lay propped against their packs they talked.

Phillips' abundant vigor continued to evoke the elder man's frank
admiration; he eyed the boy approvingly and plied him with questions.
Before they had traveled many miles he had learned what there was to
learn, for Pierce answered his questions frankly and told him about the
sacrifice his family had made in order to send him North, about the
trip itself, about his landing at Dyea, and all the rest. When he came
to the account of that shell-game the grizzled stranger smiled.

"I've lived in wide-open countries all my life," said the latter, "but
this beats anything I ever saw. Why, the crooks outnumber the honest
men and they're running things to suit themselves. One of 'em tried to
lay me. ME!" He chuckled as if the mere idea was fantastically
humorous. "Have you heard about this Soapy Smith? He's the boss, the
bell-cow, and he's made himself mayor of Skagway. Can you beat it? I'll
bet some of his men are on our Citizens' Committee at Sheep Camp. They
need a lot of killing, they do, and they'll get it. What did you do
after you lost your money?"

"I fell in with two brothers and went to packing."

"Went partners with them?'

"No, they--" Phillips' face clouded, he hesitated briefly. "I merely
lived with them and helped them with their outfit from time to time.
We're at Sheep Camp now, and I share their tent whenever I'm there. I'm
about ready to pull out and go it alone."

"Right! And don't hook up with anybody." The old man spoke with
feeling. "Look at me. I'm nesting with a dodo--darned gray-whiskered
milliner! He's so ornery I have to hide the ax every time I see him. I
just yearn to put him out of his misery, but I dassent. Of course he
has his points--everybody has; he's a game old rooster and he loves me.
That's all that saves him."

Phillips was greatly interested to learn that two men so unfitted for
this life, this country, should have essayed the hardships of the
Chilkoot trail. It amazed him to learn that already most of their
outfit was at Linderman.

"Do you mean to say that you have done all the packing for yourself and
your partner?" he inquired.

"N--no. Old Jerry totters across with a package of soda-crackers once
in a while. You must have heard him; he creaks like a gate. Of course
he eats up all the crackers before he gets to Linderman and then gorges
himself on the heavy grub that I've lugged over, but in spite of that
we've managed to make pretty good time." After a moment of meditation
he continued: "Say! You ought to see that old buzzard eat! It's
disgusting, but it's interesting. It ain't so much the expense that I
care about as the work. Old Jerry ought to be in an institution--some
place where they've got wheel-chairs and a big market-garden. But he's
plumb helpless, so I can't cut him loose and let him bleach his bones
in a strange land. I haven't got the heart."

They were resting at the Long Lake outlet, some time later, when the
old man inquired:

"I presume you've got a camp at Linderman, eh?"

"No. I have some blankets cached there and I sleep out whenever I can't
make the round trip."

"Round trip? Round trip in one day? Why, that's thirty miles!"

"Real miles, too. This country makes a man of a fellow. I wouldn't mind
sleeping out if I were sure of a hot meal once in a while, but money is
no good this side of the Summit, and these people won't even let a
stranger use their stoves."

"You can't last long at that, my boy."

Phillips smiled cheerfully. "I don't have to last much longer. I sent a
thousand dollars to Dyea this morning by Jim McCaskey, one of the
fellows I live with. He's going to put it in Healy he's altogether
different to us tenderfeet. He made me rather ashamed of myself."

The elderly man nodded. "Most pioneers are big-calibered. I'm a sort of
pioneer myself, but that infernal partner of mine has about ruined my
disposition. Take it by and large, though, it pays a man to be
accommodating."

Having crossed the high barrens, Phillips and his companion dropped
down to timber-line and soon arrived at Linderman, their journey's end.
This was perhaps the most feverishly busy camp on the entire
thirty-mile Dyea trail, but, unlike the coast towns, there was no
merrymaking, no gaiety, no gambling here. Linderman's fever came from
overwork, not from overplay. A tent village had sprung up at the head
of the lake, and from dawn until dark it echoed to the unceasing sound
of ax and hammer, of plane and saw. The air was redolent with the odor
of fresh-cut spruce and of boiling tar, for this was the shipyard where
an army of Jasons hewed and joined and fitted, each upon a bark of his
own making. Half-way down the lake was the Boundary, and a few miles
below that again was the customs station with its hateful red-jacketed
police. Beyond were uncharted waters, quite as perilous, because quite
as unknown, as those traversed by that first band of Argonauts. Deep
lakes, dark canons, roaring rapids lay between Linderman and the land
of the Golden Fleece, but the nearer these men approached those dangers
the more eagerly they pressed on.

Already the weeding-out process had gone far and the citizens of
Linderman were those who had survived it. The weak and the irresolute
had disappeared long since; these fellows who labored so mightily to
forestall the coming winter were the strong and the fit and the
enduring--the kind the North takes to herself.

In spite of his light pack, Phillips' elderly trailmate was all but
spent. He dragged his feet, he stumbled without reason, the lines in
his face were deeply set, and his bearded lips had retreated from his
teeth in a grin of exhaustion.

"Yonder's the tent," he said, finally, and his tone was eloquent of
relief.

In and out among canvas walls and taut guy-ropes the travelers wound
their way, emerging at length upon a gravelly beach where vast supplies
of provisions were cached. All about, in various stages of
construction, were skeletons of skiffs, of scows, and of barges; the
ground was spread with a carpet of shavings and sawdust.

Pierce's companion paused; then, after an incredulous stare, he said:
"Look! Is that smoke coming from my stovepipe?"

"Why, yes!"

There could be no mistake about it; from the tent in question arose the
plain evidence that a lively fire was burning inside.

"Well, I'll be darned!" breathed the elder man. "Somebody's jumped the
cache."

"Perhaps your partner--"

"He's in Sheep Camp." The speaker laboriously loosened his pack and let
it fall, then with stiff, clumsy fingers he undid the top buttons of
his vest and, to Pierce's amazement, produced a large-calibered
revolver, which he mechanically cocked and uncocked several times, the
while his eyes remained hypnotically fixed upon the telltale streamer
of smoke. Not only did his action appear to be totally uncalled for,
but he himself had undergone a startling transformation and Phillips
was impelled to remonstrate.

"Here! What the deuce--?" he began.

"Listen to me!" The old man spoke in a queer, suppressed tone, and his
eyes, when he turned them upon his fellow-packer, were even smokier
than usual. "Somebody's up to a little thievin', most likely, and it
looks like I had 'em red-handed. I've been layin' for this!"

Pierce divested himself of his pack-harness, then said, simply, "If
that's the case, I'll give you a hand."

"Better stand back," the other cautioned him. "I don't need any
help--this is my line." The man's fatigue had fallen from him; of a
sudden he had become surprisingly alert and forceful. He stole forward,
making as little noise as possible, and Phillips followed at his back.
They came to a pause within arm's-length of the tent flaps, which they
noted were securely tied.

"Hello inside!" The owner spoke suddenly and with his free hand he
jerked at one of the knots.

There came an answering exclamation, a movement; then the flaps were
seized and firmly held.

"You can't come in!" cried a voice.

"Let go! Quick!" The old man's voice was harsh.

"You'll have to wait a minute. I'm undressed."

Phillips retreated a step, as did the other man; they stared at each
other.

"A woman!" Pierce breathed.

"Lord!" The owner of the premises slowly, reluctantly sheathed his
weapon under his left arm.

"I invited myself in," the voice explained--it was a deep-pitched
contralto voice. "I was wet and nobody offered to let me dry out, so I
took possession of the first empty tent I came to. Is it yours?"

"It is--half of it. I'm mighty tired and I ain't particular how you
look, so hurry up." As the two men returned for their loads the speaker
went on, irritably. "She's got her nerve! I s'pose she's one of these
actresses. There's a bunch of 'em on the trail. Actresses!" He snorted
derisively. "I bet she smells of cologne, and, gosh! how I hate it!"

When he and Pierce returned they were admitted promptly enough, and any
lingering suspicions of the trespasser's intent were instantly
dissipated. The woman was clad in a short, damp underskirt which fell
about to her knees; she had drawn on the only dry article of apparel in
sight, a man's sweater jacket; she had thrust her bare feet into a pair
of beaded moccasins; on a line attached to the ridgepole over her head
sundry outer garments were steaming. Phillips' first thought was that
this woman possessed the fairest, the whitest, skin he had ever seen;
it was like milk. But his first impressions were confused, for
embarrassment followed quickly upon his entrance and he felt an impulse
to withdraw. The trespasser was not at all the sort of person he had
expected to find, and her complete self-possession at the intrusion,
her dignified greeting, left him not a little chagrined at his
rudeness. She eyed both men coolly from a pair of ice-blue eyes--eyes
that bespoke her nationality quite as plainly as did her features, her
dazzling complexion, and her head of fine, straight flaxen hair. She
was Scandinavian, she was a Norsewoman; that much was instantly
apparent. She appeared to derive a certain malicious pleasure now from
the consternation her appearance evoked; there was a hint of contempt,
of defiance, in her smile. In a voice so low-pitched that its quality
alone saved it from masculinity, she said:

"Pray don't be distressed; you merely startled me, that's all. My
Indians managed to get hold of some hootch at Tagish and upset our
canoe just below here. It was windy and of course they couldn't
swim--none of them can, you know--so I had hard work to save them. I've
already explained how I happened to select this particular refuge. Your
neighbors--" her lip curled disdainfully, then she shrugged. "Well, I
never got such a reception as they gave me, but I suppose they're
cheechakos. I'll be off for Dyea early in the morning. If you can put
me up for the night I'll pay you well."

During this speech, delivered in a matter-of-fact, business-like tone,
the owner of the tent had managed to overcome his first surprise; he
removed his hat now and began with an effort:

"I'm a bad hand at begging pardons, miss, but you see I've been
suffering the pangs of bereavement lately over some dear, departed
grub. I thought you were a thief and I looked forward to the pleasure
of seeing you dance. I apologize. Would you mind telling me where you
came from?"

"From Dawson." There was a silence the while the flaxen-haired woman
eyed her interrogator less disdainfully. "Yes, by poling-boat and
birch-bark. I'm not fleeing the law; I'm not a cache-robber."

"You're--all alone?"

The woman nodded. "Can you stow me away for the night? You may name
your own price."

"The price won't cripple you. I'm sorry there ain't some more women
here at Linderman, but--there ain't. We had one--a doctor's wife, but
she's gone."

"I met her at Lake Marsh."

"We've a lot more coming, but they're not here. My name is Linton. The
more-or-less Christian prefix thereto is Tom. I've got a partner named
Jerry. Put the two together, and drink hearty. This young man is Mr.--"
The speaker turned questioningly upon Phillips, who made himself known.
"I'm a family man. Mr. Phillips is a--well, he's a good packer. That's
all I know about him. I'm safe and sane, but he's about the right age
to propose marriage to you as soon as he gets his breath. A pretty
woman in this country has to expect that, as you probably know."

The woman smiled and shook hands with both men, exchanging a grip as
firm and as strong as theirs. "I am the Countess Courteau," said she.

"The--which?" Mr. Linton queried, with a start.

The Countess laughed frankly. "It is French, but I'm a Dane. I think my
husband bought the title--they're cheap in his country. He was a poor
sort of count, and I'm a poor sort of countess. But I'm a good cook--a
very good cook indeed--and if you'll excuse my looks and permit me to
wear your sweater I'll prepare supper."

Linton's eyes twinkled as he said, "I've never et with the nobility and
I don't know as I'd like their diet, for a steady thing, but--the
baking-powder is in that box and we fry with bacon grease."

Wood and water were handy, the Countess Courteau had a quick and
capable way, therefore supper was not long delayed. The tent was not
equipped for housekeeping, hence the diners held their plates in their
laps and either harpooned their food from the frying-pan or ladled it
from tin cans, but even so it had a flavor to-night so unaccustomed, so
different, that both men grasped the poignant fact that the culinary
art is mysteriously wedded to female hands. Mr. Linton voiced this
thought in his own manner.

"If a countess cooks like this," he observed, "I'd sure love to board
with a duke." Later, while the dishes were being washed and when his
visitor had shown no intention of explaining her presence in further
detail, he said, whimsically: "See here, ma'am, our young friend has
been watching you like he was afraid you'd disappear before he gets an
eyeful, and it's plain to be seen that he's devoured by curiosity. As
for me, I'm totally lacking in that miserable trait, and I abhor it in
others; but all the same, if you don't see fit to tell us pretty quick
how you came to pole up from Dawson and what in Heaven's name a woman
like you is doing here, a lone and without benefit of chaperon, I shall
pass away in dreadful agony."

"It's very simple," the Countess told him. "I have important business
'outside.' I couldn't go down the river, for the Yukon is low, the
steamers are aground on the flats, and connections at St. Michael's are
uncertain at best. Naturally I came up against the stream. I've been
working 'up-stream' all my life." She flashed him a smile at this
latter statement. "As for a chaperon--I've never felt the need of one.
Do you think they're necessary in this country?"

"Does your husband, Count--"

"My husband doesn't count. That's the trouble." The speaker laughed
again and without the faintest trace of embarrassment. "He has been out
of the picture for years." She turned to Phillips and inquired,
abruptly, "What is the packing price to Sheep Camp?"

"Fifty cents a pound, coming this way. Going back it is nothing," he
told her, gallantly.

"I haven't much to carry, but if you'll take it I'll pay you the
regular price. I'd like to leave at daylight."

"You seem to be in a rush," Mr. Linton hazarded, mildly.

"I am. Now, then, if you don't mind I'll turn in, for I must be in Dyea
to-morrow night."

Pierce Phillips had said little during the meal or thereafter, to be
sure, nevertheless, he had thought much. He had indeed used his eyes to
good purpose, and now he regretted exceedingly that the evening
promised to be so short. The more he saw of this unconventional
countess the more she intrigued his interest. She was the most unusual
woman he had ever met and he was eager to learn all about her. His
knowledge of women was peculiarly elemental; his acquaintance with the
sex was extremely limited. Those he had known in his home town were one
kind, a familiar kind; those he had encountered since leaving home
were, for the most part, of a totally different class and of a type
that awoke his disapproval. To a youth of his training and of his
worldly experience the genus woman is divided into two species--old
women and young women. The former are interesting only in a motherly
way, and demand nothing more than abstract courtesy. They do not
matter. The latter, on the contrary, separate themselves again into two
families or suborders--viz., good women and bad women. The demarcation
between the two branches of the suborder is distinct; there is nothing
common to the two. Good women are good through and through--bad ones
are likewise thoroughly bad. There are no intermediate types, no
troublesome variations, no hybrids nor crosses.

The Countess Courteau, it seemed to him, was a unique specimen and
extremely hard to classify, in that she was neither old nor young--or,
what was even more puzzling, in that she was both. In years she was not
far advanced--little older than he, in fact--but in experience, in
wisdom, in self-reliance she was vastly his superior; and experience,
he believed, is what makes women old. As to the family, the suborder to
which she belonged, he was at an utter loss to decide. For instance,
she accepted her present situation with a sang-froid equaling that of a
camp harpy, a few of whom Pierce had seen; then, too, she was, or had
been, married to a no-account foreigner to whom she referred with a
calloused and most unwifely flippancy; moreover, she bore herself with
a freedom, a boldness, quite irreconcilable to the modesty of so-called
"good women." Those facts were enough to classify her definitely, and
yet despite them she was anything but common, and it would have taken
rare courage indeed to transgress that indefinable barrier of decorum
with which she managed to surround herself. There was something about
her as cold and as pure as blue ice, and she gave the same impression
of crystal clarity. All in all, hers was a baffling personality and
Phillips fell asleep with the riddle of it unanswered. He awoke in the
morning with it still upon his mind.

The Countess Courteau had been first to arise; she was fully dressed
and the sheet-iron stove was glowing when her companions roused
themselves. By the time they had returned from the lake she had
breakfast ready.

"Old Jerry is going to be awful sore at missing this court function,"
Mr. Linton told her during the meal. "He's a great ladies' man, Old
Jerry is."

"Perhaps I shall meet him."

"You wouldn't like him if you did; nobody likes him, except me, and I
hate him." Linton sighed. "He's a handicap to a young man like me."

"Why don't you send him home?"

"Home? Old Jerry would die before he'd turn back. He'd lift his muzzle
and bay at the very idea until some stranger terminated him. Well, he's
my cross; I s'pose I've got to bear him."

"Who is Mr. Linton?" the Countess inquired, as she and Pierce left the
village behind them.

"Just an ordinary stampeder, like the rest of us. I think."

"He's more than that. He's the kind who'll go through and make good. I
dare say his partner is just like him."

Phillips approved of the Countess Courteau this morning even more
thoroughly than he had on the evening previous, and they had not walked
far before he realized that as a traveler she was the equal of him or
of any man. She was lithe and strong and light of foot; the way she
covered ground awoke his sincere admiration. She did not trouble to
talk much and she dispensed with small talk in others; she appeared to
be absorbed in her own affairs, and only when they rested did she
engage in conversation. The more Phillips studied her and the better
acquainted he became with her the larger proportions did she assume.
Not only was she completely mistress of herself, but she had a
forceful, compelling way with others; there was a natural air of
authority about her, and she managed in some subtle manner to invest
herself and her words with importance. She was quite remarkable.

Now, the trail breeds its own peculiar intimacy; although the two
talked little, they nevertheless got to know each other quite well, and
when they reached the Summit, about midday, Phillips felt a keen regret
that their journey was so near its end.

A mist was drifting up from the sea; it obscured the valley below and
clung to the peaks like ragged garments. Up and out of this fog came
the interminable procession of burden-bearers. The Countess paused to
observe them and to survey the accumulation of stores which crowned the
watershed.

"I didn't dream so many were coming," said she.

"It's getting worse daily," Pierce told her. "Dyea is jammed, and so is
Skagway. The trails are alive with men."

"How many do you think will come?"

"There's no telling. Twenty, thirty, fifty thousand, perhaps. About
half of them turn back when they see the Chilkoot."

"And the rest will wish they had. It's a hard country; not one in a
hundred will prosper."

They picked their way down the drunken descent to the Scales, then
breasted the sluggish human current to Sheep Camp.

A group of men were reading a notice newly posted upon the wall of the
log building which served as restaurant and hotel, and after scanning
it Pierce explained:

"It's another call for a miners' meeting. We're having quite a time
with cache-robbers. If we catch them we'll hang them."

The Countess nodded. "Right! They deserve it. You know we don't have
any stealing on the 'inside.' Now, then, I'll say good-by." She paid
Pierce and extended her hand to him. "Thank you for helping me across.
I'll be in Dyea by dark."

"I hope we'll meet again," he said, with a slight flush.

The woman favored him with one of her generous, friendly smiles. "I
hope so, too. You're a nice boy. I like you." Then she stepped into the
building and was gone.

"A nice boy!" Phillips was pained. A boy! And he the sturdiest packer
on the pass, with perhaps one exception! That was hardly just to him.
If they did meet again--and he vowed they would--he'd show her he was
more than a boy. He experienced a keen desire to appear well in her
eyes, to appear mature and forceful. He asked himself what kind of man
Count Courteau could be; he wondered if he, Pierce Phillips, could fall
in love with such a woman as this, an older woman, a woman who had been
married. It would be queer to marry a countess, he reflected.

As he walked toward his temporary home he beheld quite a gathering of
citizens, and paused long enough to note that they were being harangued
by the confidence-man who had first initiated him into the subtleties
of the three-shell game. Mr. Broad had climbed upon a raised tent
platform and was presenting an earnest argument against capital
punishment. Two strangers upon the fringe of the crowd were talking,
and Pierce heard one of them say:

"Of course he wants the law to take its course, inasmuch as there isn't
any law. He's one of the gang."

"The surest way to flush a covey of crooks is to whistle for old Judge
Lynch," the other man agreed. "Listen to him!"

"Have they caught the cache-robbers?" Phillips made bold to inquire.

"No, and they won't catch them, with fellows like that on the
committee. The crooks hang together and we don't. If I had my way
that's just what they'd do--hang together. I'd start in by bending a
limb over that rascal."

Phillips had attended several of these indignation meetings and,
remembering that all of them bad proved purposeless, he went on toward
the McCaskey brothers' tent. He and the McCaskeys were not the closest
of friends, in spite of the fact that they had done him a favor--a
favor, by the way, for which he had paid many times over--nevertheless,
they were his most intimate acquaintances and he felt an urgent desire
to tell them about his unusual experience. His desire to talk about the
Countess Courteau was irresistible.

But when he entered the tent his greeting fell flat, for Joe, the elder
McCaskey, addressed him sharply, almost accusingly:

"Say, it's about time you showed up!"

"What's the matter?" Pierce saw that the other brother was stretched
out in his blankets and that his head was bandaged. "Hello!" he cried.
"What ails Jim? Is he sick?"

"Sick? Worse than sick," Joe grumbled. "That money of yours is to blame
for it. It's a wonder he isn't dead."

"My money? How?" Phillips was both mystified and alarmed.

Jim raised himself in his blankets and said, irritably: "After this you
can run your own pay-car, kid. I'm through, d'you hear?"

"Speak out. What's wrong?"

"Jim was stuck up, that's what's wrong. That's enough, isn't it? They
bent a six-gun over his head and grabbed your coin. He's got a dent in
his crust the size of a saucer!"

Phillips' face whitened slowly. "My money! Robbed!" he gasped. "JIM!
Who did it? How could you let them?"

The younger McCaskey fell back weakly; he waved a feeble gesture at his
brother. "Joe'll tell you. I'm dizzy; my head ain't right yet."

"A stranger stopped him--asked him something or other--and another guy
flattened him from behind. That's all he remembers. When he came to he
found he'd been frisked. He was still dippy when he got home, so I put
him to bed. He got up and moved around a bit this morning, but he's
wrong in his head."

Phillips seated himself upon a candle-box. "Robbed!" he exclaimed,
weakly. "Broke--again! Gee! That was hard money! It was the first I
ever earned!"

Joe McCaskey's dark face was doubly unpleasant as he frowned down upon
the youth. "Thinking about nothing except your coin, eh? Why don't you
think about Jim? He did you a favor and 'most lost his life."

"Oh, I'm sorry--of course!" Phillips rose heavily and crossed to the
bed. "I didn't mean to appear selfish. I don't blame you, Jim. I'll get
a doctor for you, then you must describe the hold-ups. Give me a hint
who they are and I'll go after them."

The younger brother rolled his head in negation and mumbled, sullenly:
"I'm all right. I don't want a doctor."

Joe explained for him: "He never saw the fellows before and he don't
seem to remember much about them. That's natural enough. Your money's
gone clean, kid, and a yelp won't get you anything. The crooks are
organized and if you set up a holler they'll get all of us. They'll
alibi anybody you accuse--it's no trick to alibi a pal--"

"Isn't it?" The question was uttered unexpectedly; it came from the
front of the tent and startled the occupants thereof, who turned to
behold a stranger just entering their premises. He was an elderly man;
he possessed a quick, shrewd eye; he had poked the tent flap aside with
the barrel of a Colt's revolver. Through the door-opening could be seen
other faces and the bodies of other men who had likewise stolen up
unheard. During the moment of amazement following his first words these
other men crowded in behind him.

"Maybe it 'll be more of a trick than you figure on." The stranger's
gray mustache lifted in a grin that was not at all friendly.

"What the blazes--?" Joe McCaskey exploded.

"Go easy!" the intruder cautioned him. "We've been laying around,
waiting for your pal to get back." With a movement of the revolver
muzzle he indicated Phillips. "Now then, stretch! On your toes and
reach high. You there, get up!" He addressed himself to Jim, who rose
from his bed and thrust his hands over his bandaged head. "That's
nice!" the stranger nodded approvingly. "Now don't startle me; don't
make any quick moves or I may tremble this gun off--she's easy on the
trigger." To his friends he called, "Come in, gentlemen; they're
gentle."

There were four of the latter; they appeared to be substantial men, men
of determination. All were armed.

Pierce Phillips' amazement gave way to indignation. "What is this, an
arrest or a hold-up?" he inquired.

"It's right smart of both," the leader of the posse drawled, in a voice
which betrayed the fact that he hailed from somewhere in the far
Southwest. "We're in quest of a bag of rice--a bag with a rip in it and
'W. K.' on the side. While I slap your pockets, just to see if you're
ironed, these gentlemen are goin' to look over your outfit."

"This is an outrage!" Jim McCaskey complained. "I'm just getting over
one stick-up. I'm a sick man."

"Sure!" his brother exclaimed, furiously. "You're a pack of fools! What
d'you want, anyhow?"

"We want you to shut up! See that you do." The old man's eyes snapped.
"If you've got to say something, tell us how there happens to be a
trail of rice from this man's cache"--he indicated one of his
companions--"right up to your tent."

The McCaskeys exchanged glances. Phillips turned a startled face upon
them.

"It isn't much of a trail, but it's enough to follow."

For a few moments nothing was said, and meanwhile the search of the
tent went on. When Pierce could no longer remain silent he broke out:

"There's some mistake. These boys packed this grub from Dyea and I
helped with some of it."

"Aren't you partners?" some one inquired.

Joe McCaskey answered this question. "No. He landed broke. We felt
sorry for him and took him in."

Joe was interrupted by an exclamation from one of the searchers. "Here
it is!" said the man. He had unearthed a bulging canvas sack which he
flung down for inspection. "There's my mark, 'W. K.,' and there's the
rip. I knew we had 'em right!"

After a brief examination the leader of the posse turned to his
prisoners, whose hands were still held high, saying:

"Anything you can think of in the way of explanations you'd better save
for the miners' meeting. It's waitin' to welcome you. We'll put a guard
over this plunder till the rest of it is identified. Now, then, fall in
line and don't crowd. After you, gentlemen."

Pierce Phillips realized that it was useless to argue, for his words
would not be listened to, therefore he followed the McCaskeys out into
the open air. The odium of this accusation was hard to bear; he
bitterly resented his situation and something told him he would have to
fight to clear himself; nevertheless, he was not seriously concerned
over the outcome. Public feeling was high, to be sure; the men of Sheep
Camp were in a dangerous frame of mind and their actions were liable to
be hasty, ill-considered--their verdict was apt to be fantastic--but,
secure in the knowledge of his innocence, Pierce felt no apprehension.
Rather he experienced a thrill of excitement at the contretemps and at
the ordeal which he knew was forthcoming.

The Countess Courteau had called him a boy. This wasn't a boy's
business; this was a real man-sized adventure.

"Gee! What a day this has been!" he said to himself.

CHAPTER IV

The story of the first trial at Sheep Camp is an old one, but it
differs with every telling. In the hectic hurry of that gold-rush many
incidents were soon forgotten and such salient facts as did survive
were deeply colored, for those were colorful days. That trial marked an
epoch in early Yukon history, for, although its true significance was
unsensed at the time, it really signalized the dawn of common honesty
on the Chilkoot and the Chilkat trails, and it was the first move taken
toward the disruption of organized outlawry--a bitter fight, by the
way, which ended only in the tragic death of Soapy Smith and the flight
of his notorious henchmen. Although the circumstances of the Sheep Camp
demonstration now seem shocking, they did not seem so at the time, and
they served a larger purpose than was at first apparent; not only did
theft become an unprofitable and an uninteresting occupation
thereafter, but also the men who shaped a code and drew first blood in
defense of it experienced a beneficial reaction and learned to fit the
punishment to the crime--no easy lesson to learn where life runs hot
and where might is right.

The meeting was in session and it had been harangued into a dangerous
frame of mind when Pierce Phillips and the two McCaskeys were led
before it. A statement by the leader of the posse, corroborated by the
owner of the missing sack of rice, roused the audience to a fury. Even
while these stories were being told there came other men who had
identified property of theirs among the provision piles inside the
McCaskey tent, and when they, too, had made their reports the crowd
began to mill; there were demands for a speedy trial and a swift
vengeance.

These demands found loudest echo among the outlaw element for which
Lucky Broad had acted as mouthpiece. Although the members of that band
were unknown--as a matter of fact, no man knew his
neighbor--nevertheless it was plain that there was an organization of
crooks and that a strong bond of understanding existed between them.
Now, inasmuch as the eye of suspicion had been turned away from them,
now that a herring had been dragged across the trail, their obstructive
tactics ended and they, too, became noisy in their clamor that justice
be done.

The meeting was quickly organized along formal lines and a committee of
three was appointed to conduct the hearing. The chairman of this
committee-he constituted himself chairman by virtue of the fact that he
was first nominated--made a ringing speech in which he praised his
honesty, his fairness, and his knowledge of the law. He complimented
the miners for their acumen in selecting for such a position of
responsibility a man of his distinguished qualifications. It was plain
that he believed they had chosen wisely. Then, having inquired the
names of his two committeemen, he likewise commended them in glowing
terms, although of course he could not praise them quite as unstintedly
as he had praised himself. Still, he spoke well of them and concluded
by stating that so long as affairs were left in his hands justice would
be safeguarded and the rights of this miserable, cringing trio of
thieves would be protected, albeit killing, in his judgment, was too
mild a punishment for people of their caliber.

"Hear! Hear!" yelled the mob.

Pierce Phillips listened to this speech with a keenly personal and yet
a peculiarly detached interest. The situation struck him as unreal,
grotesque, and the whole procedure as futile. Under other circumstances
it would have been grimly amusing; now he was uncomfortably aware that
it was anything but that. There was no law whatever in the land save
the will of these men; in their hands lay life or death, exoneration or
infamy. He searched the faces round about him, but could find signs
neither of friendship nor of sympathy. This done, he looked everywhere
for a glimpse of a woman's straw-colored hair and was relieved to
discover that the Countess Courteau was not in the audience. Doubtless
she had left for Dyea and was already some distance down the trail. He
breathed easier, for he did not wish her to witness his humiliation,
and her presence would have merely added to his embarrassment.

The prosecution's case was quickly made, and it was a strong one. Even
yet the damning trickle of rice grains could be traced through the moss
and mire directly to the door of the prisoners' tent, and the original
package, identified positively by its owner, was put in evidence. This
in itself was enough; testimony from the other men who had likewise
recovered merchandise they had missed and mourned merely strengthened
the case and further inflamed the minds of the citizens.

From the first there had never been a doubt in Phillips' mind that the
McCaskeys were guilty. The facts offered in evidence served only to
explain certain things which had puzzled him at various times;
nevertheless, his indignation and his contempt for them were tempered
with regrets, for he could not but remember that they had befriended
him. It was of course imperative that he establish his own innocence,
but he determined that in so doing he would prejudice their case as
little as possible. That was no more than the merest loyalty.

When it came tune to hear the defense, the McCaskeys stared at Pierce
coolly; therefore he climbed to the tent platform and faced his
accusers.

He made known his name, his birthplace, the ship which had borne him
north. He told how he had landed at Dyea, how he had lost his last
dollar at the gambling-table, how he had appealed to the McCaskey boys,
and how they had given him shelter. That chance association, he took
pains to explain, had continued, but had never ripened into anything
more, anything closer; it was in no wise a partnership; he had nothing
to do with them and they had nothing to do with him. Inasmuch as the
rice had been stolen during the previous night, he argued that he could
have had no hand in the theft, for he had spent the night in Linderman,
which fact he offered to prove by two witnesses.

"Produce them," ordered the chairman.

"One of them is still at Linderman, the other was here in Sheep Camp an
hour ago. She has probably started for Dyea by this time."

"A woman?"

"Yes, sir. I brought her across."

"What is her name?"

Phillips hesitated. "The Countess Courteau," said he. There was a
murmur of interest; the members of the committee conferred with one an
other.

"Do you mean to tell us that you've got a titled witness?" the
self-appointed spokesman inquired. His face wore a smile of disbelief;
when the prisoner flushed and nodded he called out over the heads of
the crowd:

"Countess Courteau!" There was no answer. "Do any of you gentlemen know
the Countess Courteau?" he inquired.

His question was greeted by a general laugh.

"Don't let him kid you," cried a derisive voice.

"Never heard of her, but I met four kings last night," yelled another.

"Call the Marquis of Queensberry," shouted still a third.

"Countess Courteau!" repeated the chairman, using his hands for a
megaphone.

The cry was taken up by other throats. "Countess Courteau! Countess
Courteau!" they mocked. "Come, Countess! Nice Countess! Pretty
Countess!" There was a ribald note to this mockery which caused
Phillips' eyes to glow.

"She and the count have just left the palace. Let's get along with the
hangin'," one shrill voice demanded.

"You won't hang me!" Phillips retorted, angrily.

"Be not so sure," taunted the acting judge. "Inasmuch as your countess
appears to be constituted of that thin fabric of which dreams are made;
inasmuch as there is no such animal--"

"Hol' up!" came a peremptory challenge. "M'sieu Jodge!" It was the big
French Canadian whom Pierce had met on the crest of the divide; he came
forward now, pushing his resistless way through the audience. "Wat for
you say dere ain't nobody by dat name, eh?" He turned his back to the
committee and addressed the meeting. "Wat for you hack lak dis, anyhow?
By gosh! I heard 'bout dis lady! She's ol'-timer lak me."

"Well, trot her out! Where is she?"

"She's on her way to Dyea," Pierce insisted. "She can't be far--"

'Poleon Doret was angry. "I don' listen to no woman be joke 'bout, you
hear? Dis boy spik true. He was in Linderman las' night, for I seen him
on top of Chilkoot yesterday myse'f, wit' pack on his back so beeg as a
barn."

"Do you know the accused?" queried the spokesman.

'Poleon turned with a shrug. "Non! No! But--yes, I know him li'l bit.
Anybody can tell he's hones' boy. By Gar! She's strong feller,
too--pack lak hell!"

Pierce Phillips was grateful for this evidence of faith, inconclusive
as it was in point of law. He was sorry, therefore, to see the
Frenchman, after replying shortly, impatiently, to several senseless
cross-questions, force his way out of the crowd and disappear, shaking
his head and muttering in manifest disgust at the temper of his
townsmen.

But although one friend had gone, another took his place--a champion,
by the way, whom Pierce would never have suspected of being such.
Profiting by the break in the proceedings, Lucky Broad spoke up.

"Frenchy was right--this kid's on the square," he declared. "I'm the
gentleman who gathered his wheat at Dyea--he fairly fed it to me, like
he said--so I guess I'm acquainted with him. We're all assembled up to
mete out justice, and justice is going to be met, but, say! a sucker
like this boy wouldn't KNOW enough to steal!"

It was doubtful if this witness, well-intentioned as he was, carried
conviction, for, although his followers took their cue from him and
applauded loudly, their very manifestations of faith aroused suspicion
among the honest men present.

One of the latter, a red-faced, square-shouldered person, thrust a
determined countenance close to Broad's and cried, angrily: "Is that
so? Well, I'm for hangin' anybody you boost!"

This sentiment met with such instantaneous second that the
confidence-man withdrew precipitately. "Have it your own way," he gave
in, with an airy gesture. "But take it from me you're a bunch of boobs.
Hangin' ain't a nice game, and the guy that hollers loudest for it is
usually the one that needs it worst."

It took some effort on the part of the chairman to bring the meeting to
order so that the hearing could be resumed.

Phillips went on with his story and told of spending the night with Tom
Linton, then of his return to Sheep Camp to learn that he had been
robbed of all his savings. Corroboration of this misfortune he left to
the oral testimony of the two brothers McCaskey and to the
circumstantial evidence of Jim's bandaged head.

While it seemed to him that he had given a simple, straightforward
account of himself which would establish his innocence, so far, at
least, as it applied to the theft of the sack of rice, he was
uncomfortably aware that evidence of systematic pilfering had been
introduced and that evidence he had not met except indirectly. His
proof seemed good so far as it went, but it did not go far, and he
believed it all too likely that his hearers still considered him an
accomplice, at the best.

Jim McCaskey was next called and Pierce made way for him. The younger
brother made a poor start, but he warmed up to his own defense, gaining
confidence and ease as he talked.

In the first place, both he and Joe were innocent of this outrageous
charge--as innocent as unborn babes--and this air of suspicion was like
to smother them. This Jim declared upon his honor. The evidence was
strong, he admitted, but it was purely circumstantial, and he proposed
to explain it away. He proposed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth; letting the blame fall where it would and
leaving the verdict entirely up to his hearers. Joe would substantiate
his every statement.

It was quite true that he and his brother had been Good Samaritans;
they had opened their doors and had taken in this young man when he was
hungry and homeless, but that was their habit. They had fed him, they
had shared their blankets with him, they had helped him in a thousand
ways, not without serious inconvenience to themselves. Why, only on the
day before the speaker himself had volunteered to take the young man's
earnings to Dyea for safekeeping, thereby letting himself in for an
unmerciful mauling, and suffering a semi-fractured skull, the marks of
which would doubtless stay with him for a long time.

Phillips had left camp early the previous morning, to be sure, and he
had not come home until an hour or two ago, but where he had gone, how
he had occupied himself during his absence, where he had spent the
night, of course the speaker had no way of knowing. Phillips was often
absent at night; he came and he went at all hours, and neither Joe nor
the witness ever questioned him, believing his statements that he was
packing for hire. Neither his brother nor he had ever seen that sack of
rice antil it was uncovered by the posse, and as for the other plunder,
it was all part and parcel of an outfit which their guest had been
assembling for some time. They supposed, of course, that he had bought
it, bit by bit, with his earnings.

Pierce Phillips listened in speechless amazement, scarcely believing
his own ears, the while Jim McCaskey struck the fetters from his own
and his brother's limbs and placed them upon his. It seemed impossible
that such a story could carry weight, but from all indications it did.
When Joe McCaskey took the center of the stage and glibly corroborated
his brother's statements Pierce interrupted him savagely, only to be
warned that he'd better be silent.

"That's all we've got to say," concluded the elder of the precious pair
when he had finished. "You can judge for yourselves who did the
stealing. Jim and I've got all the grub we want; this fellow hasn't
any."

"Have you anything to say for yourself?" The chairman addressed himself
to Phillips.

"I have." Pierce again took the stand. "You're making a great mistake,"
he said, earnestly. "These men have lied; they're trying to save
themselves at my expense. I've told you everything, now I demand that
you wait to hear the Countess Courteau or Mr. Linton. They'll prove
where I spent last night, at least."

"Mr. Chairman!" A stranger claimed general attention. "I've listened to
the evidence and it's strong enough for me. The grub didn't get up and
walk away by itself; somebody took it. Grub is more than grub in this
country; it's more than money; it's a man's life, that's what it is.
Now, then, the McCaskeys had an outfit when they landed; they didn't
need to steal; but this fellow, this dirty ingrate, he hadn't a pound.
I don't swallow his countess story and I don't care a hoot where he was
last night. Let's decide first what punishment a thief gets, then let's
give it to him."

"Hear! Hear!" came the cry.

"Hanging is good enough for thieves!" shouted the choleric individual
who had so pointedly made known his distrust of Lucky Broad. "I say
stretch 'em."

"Right! Let's make an example!"

"Hang him!" There rose a hoarse chorus of assent to this suggestion,
whereupon the chairman stepped forward.

"All those in favor of hanging--" he began. But again he was
interrupted by 'Poleon Doret, who once more bored his way into the
crowd, crying:

"Wait! I got somet'ing to say." He was breathing heavily, as if from a
considerable exertion; perspiration stood upon his face; his eyes were
flashing. He vaulted lightly to the platform, then flung out his long
arms, crying: "You hack lak crazee mans. Wat talk is dis 'bout hangin'?
You ain't wild hanimals!"

The red-faced advocate of the noose who had spoken a moment before
answered him in a loud voice:

"I paid hard money for my grub and I've packed every pound of it on my
back. You can take a mark's life by stealing his matches the same as by
shooting him. I want to see thieves on the end of a rope."

Doret bent down to him. "All right, m'sieu! You want blood; we give it
to you. Bring on dat rope. I'll put it on dis boy's neck if you'll do
de pullin'. For me, I ain't care 'bout killin' no-body, but you--you're
brave man. You hang on tight w'ile dis boy he keeck, an' strangle, an'
grow black in de face. It's goin' mak you feel good all over!"

"Rats! _I_ won't do the trick, but--"

"Somebody mus' do de pullin'." 'Poleon grinned. "He ain't goin' hang
himse'f. Mebbe you got pardner w'at lak give you hand, eh?" He raised
his head and laughed at the crowd. "Messieurs, you see how 'tis. It
tak' brave man to hang a feller lak dis. Some day policeman's goin'
come along an' say: 'By Gar, I been lookin' for you long tarn. De new
jodge at Dyea he tell me you murder a boy at Sheep Camp. S'pose you
come wit' me an' do little hangin' yourse'f.' No, messieurs! We ain't
Hinjuns; we're good sensible peoples, eh?"

A member of the committee, one who had hitherto acted a passive part,
now stepped forward.

"Frenchy has put it right," he acknowledged. "We'll have courts in this
country some day, and we'll have to answer to them. Miners' law is all
right, so far as it goes, but I won't be a party to a murder. That's
what this would be, murder. If you're going to talk hanging, you can
take me off of your committee."

Lucky Broad uttered a yelp of encouragement. "Hangin' sounds better 'n
it feels," he declared. "Think it over, you family men. When you make
your stakes and go home, little Johnny's going to climb onto your knee
and say, 'Papa, tell me why you hung that man at Sheep Camp,' and
you'll say, 'Why, son, we hung him because he stole a sack of rice.'
Like hell you will!"

'Poleon Doret regained public attention by saying, "Messieurs, I got
s'prise for you." He lifted himself to his toes and called loudly over
the heads of the assembled citizens, "Dis way, madame." From the
direction he was looking there came a swiftly moving figure, the figure
of a tall woman with straw-gold hair. Men gave way before her. She
hurried straight to the tent platform, where 'Poleon leaned down, took
her beneath her arms, and swung her lightly up beside him. "Madame de
Countess Courteau," he announced; then with a flourish he swept off his
knitted cap and bowed to the new-comer. To those beneath him he cried,
sharply, "Tak' off dose hat or I knock dem off."

The Countess, too, had evidently made haste, for she was breathing
deeply. She flashed a smile at Pierce Phillips, then said, so that all
could hear:

"I understand you accuse this young man of stealing something last
night. Well, he was in Linderman. He brought me over to-day."

"We don't care so much about the rice; this stealing has been going on
for a long time," a bystander explained.

"True. But the rice was stolen last night, wasn't it? The man who stole
it probably stole the other stuff."

"They're two to one," Pierce told her. "They're trying to saw it off on
me."

The Countess turned and stared at the McCaskey brothers, who met her
look defiantly. "Ban!" she exclaimed. "I haven't heard the evidence,
for I was on my way to Dyea when Mr.--" She glanced inquiringly at
'Poleon.

He bowed again. "Doret," said he. "Napoleon Doret."

"--when Mr. Doret overtook me, but I'm willing to wager my life that
this boy isn't a thief." Again she smiled at Phillips, and he
experienced a tumult of conflicting emotions. Never had he seen a woman
like this one, who radiated such strength, such confidence, such power.
She stood there like a goddess, a splendid creature fashioned of snow
and gold; she dominated the assembly. He was embarrassed that she
should find him in this predicament, shamed that she should be forced
to come to his assistance; nevertheless, he was thrilled at her ready
response.

It was the elder McCaskey who next claimed attention. "We've made our
spiel," he began; then he launched into a repetition of his former
statement of facts.

The Countess stepped to Pierce's side, inquiring, quickly, "What is
this, a joke?"

"I thought so at first, but it looks as if I'll be cutting figure
eights on the end of a tent-rope."

"What makes them think you did the stealing?"

"The McCaskeys swear I did. You see, I had no outfit of my own--"

"Are you broke?"

"N--no! I wasn't yesterday. I am now." In a few sentences Pierce made
known the facts of his recent loss, and pointed to Jim McCaskey's
bandaged head.

When the elder brother had concluded, the Countess again addressed the
meeting. "You men take it for granted that Phillips did the stealing
because he needed grub," said she. "As a matter of fact he wasn't
broke, he had a thousand dollars, and--"

"Say! Who hired you to argue this case?" It was Jim McCaskey speaking.
He had edged his way forward and was scowling darkly at the woman.
"What's the idea, anyhow? Are you stuck on this kid?"

The Countess Courteau eyed her interrogator coolly, her cheeks
maintained their even coloring, her eyes were as icy blue as ever. It
was plain that she was in no wise embarrassed by his insinuation.

Very quietly she said: "I'll tell you whether I am if you'll tell me
who got his thousand dollars. Was it your brother?" Jim McCaskey
recoiled; his face whitened. "Who hit you over the head?" the woman
persisted. "Did he?"

"That's none of your business," Jim shouted. "I want to know what
you're doing in this case. You say the kid was in Linderman last night.
Well, I say--you're a--! How d'you know he was there? How d'you know he
didn't steal that rice before he left, for that matter?"

"I know he was in Linderman because I was with him."

"With him? All night?" The speaker grinned insultingly.

"Yes, all night. I slept in the same tent with him and--"

"Now I've got your number," the younger McCaskey cried, in triumph.

"Bah!" The Countess shrugged unconcernedly. "As for the rice being
stolen before he--"

"'Countess.' Ha!" Jim burst forth again. "Swell countess you are! The
Dyea dance-halls are full of 'countesses' like you--counting percentage
checks. Boys, who are you going to believe? She slept all night--"

McCaskey got no further, for with a cry of rage Pierce Phillips set his
muscles and landed upon him. It was a mighty blow and it found lodgment
upon the side of its victim's face.

Jim McCaskey went down and his assailant, maddened completely by the
feel of his enemy's flesh, lunged forward to stamp him beneath his
heels. But stout arms seized him, bodies intervened, and he was hurled
backward. A shout arose; there was a general scramble for the raised
platform. There were yells of:

"Shame!"

"Hang on to him!"

"Stretch him up!"

"Dirty ingrate!"

Phillips fought with desperation; his struggles caused the structure to
creak and to strain; men piled over it and joined in the fight. He was
whining and sobbing in his fury.

Meanwhile ready hands had rescued Jim from the trampling feet and now
held his limp body erect.

It was the clarion call of the Countess Courteau which first made
itself heard above the din. She had climbed to the railing and was
poised there with one arm outflung, a quivering finger leveled at Jim
McCaskey's head.

"Look!" she cried. "Look, men--AT HIS HEAD! There's proof that he's
been lying!" The victim of the assault had lost his cap in the scuffle,
and with it had gone the bandage. His head was bare now, and, oddly
enough, it showed no matted hair, no cut, no bruise, no swelling. It
was, in fact, a perfectly normal, healthy, well-preserved cranium.

Phillips ceased his struggles; he passed a shaking hand over his eyes
to clear his vision; his captors released him and crowded closer to Jim
McCaskey, who was now showing the first signs of returning
consciousness.

"He told you he was held up--that his skull was cracked, didn't he?"
The Countess threw back her head and laughed unrestrainedly. "My! But
you men are fools! Now, then, who do you suppose got young Phillips'
money? Use your wits, men."

There was a great craning of necks, a momentary hush, the while Jim
McCaskey rolled his head loosely, opened his eyes, and stared wildly
about.

The Countess bent down toward him, and now her cheeks had grown white,
her blue eyes were flaming.

"Well, my man," she cried, in a shaking voice, "now you know what kind
of a woman I am. 'Counting percentage checks,' eh?" She seemed upon the
point of reaching out and throttling Jim with her long strong fingers.
"Let's see you and your precious brother do a little counting. Count
out a thousand dollars for this boy. Quick!"

It was 'Poleon Doret who searched the palsied victim. While other hands
restrained the older brother he went through the younger one and,
having done so, handed Pierce Phillips a bulky envelope addressed in
the latter's handwriting.

"She's yours, eh?" 'Poleon inquired.

Phillips made a hasty examination, then nodded.

The Countess turned once more to the crowd. "I move that you apologize
to Mr. Phillips. Are you game?" Her question met with a yell of
approval. "Now, then, there's a new case on the docket, and the charge
is highway robbery. Are you ready to vote a verdict?" Her face was set,
her eyes still flashed.

"Guilty!" came with a roar.

"Very well. Hang the ruffians if you feel like it!"

She leaped down from her vantage-point, and without a word, without a
glance behind her set out along the Dyea trail.

CHAPTER V

"Looked kind of salty for a spell, didn't it?" The grizzled leader of
the posse, he who had effected the capture of the thieves, was speaking
to Pierce. "Well, I'm due for a private apology. I hope you cherish no
hard feelings. Eh?"

"None whatever, sir. I'm only too glad to get out whole and get my
money back. It was quite an experience." Already Phillips' mind had
ranged the events of the last crowded hour into some sort of order; his
fancy had tinged them with a glamour already turning rosy with romance,
and he told himself that his thrills had been worth their price.

"Lucky that woman showed up. Who is she?" Phillips shook his head. In
his turn he inquired, "What are you going to do with the McCaskeys?"

The elder man's face hardened. "I don't know. This talk about hangin'
makes me weary. I'd hang 'em; I'd kick a bar'l out from under either of
'em. I've done such things and I never had any bad dreams."

But it was plain that the sentiment favoring such extreme punishment
had changed, for a suggestion was made to flog the thieves and send
them out of the country. This met with instant response. A motion was
put to administer forty lashes and it was carried with a whoop.

Preparations to execute the sentence were immediately instituted. A
scourge was prepared by wiring nine heavy leather thongs to a
whip-handle, the platform was cleared, and a call was issued for a man
to administer the punishment. Some delay ensued at this point, but
finally a burly fellow volunteered, climbed to the stage, and removed
his canvas coat.

Since the younger McCaskey appeared to be still somewhat dazed from the
rough handling he had suffered, his brother was thrust forward. The
latter was stripped to the waist, his wrists were firmly bound, then
trussed up to one of the stout end-poles of the tent-frame which,
skeleton-like, stood over the platform. This done, the committee fell
back, and the wielder of the whip stepped forward.

The crowd had watched these grim proceedings intently; it became quite
silent now. The hour was growing late, the day had been overcast, and a
damp chill that searched the marrow was settling as the short afternoon
drew to a close. The prisoner's naked body showed very white beneath
his shock of coal-black hair; his flesh seemed tender and the onlookers
stared at it in fascination.

Joe McCaskey was a man of nerve; he held himself erect; there was
defiance in the gaze which he leveled at the faces below him. But his
brother Jim was not made of such stern, stuff--he was the meaner, the
more cowardly of the pair--and these methodical preparations, the
certainty of his own forthcoming ordeal, bred in him a desperate panic.
The sight of his brother's flesh bared to the bite of the lash brought
home to him the horrifying significance of a flogging, and then, as if
to emphasize that significance, the executioner gave his
cat-o'-nine-tails a practice swing. As the lashes hissed through the
air the victim at the post stiffened rigidly, but his brother, outside
the inclosure, writhed in his tracks and uttered a faint moan.
Profiting by the inattention of his captors, Jim McCaskey summoned his
strength and with an effort born of desperation wrenched himself free.
Hands grasped at him as he bolted, bodies barred his way, but he bore
them down; before the meaning of the commotion had dawned upon the
crowd at large he had fought his way out and was speeding down the
street. But fleet-footed men were at his heels, a roar of rage burst
from the mob, and in a body it took up the chase. Down the stumpy,
muddy trail went the pursuit, and every command to halt spurred the
fleeing man to swifter flight. Cabin doors opened; people came running
from their tents; some tried to fling themselves in the way of the
escaping criminal; packers toiling up the trail heard the approaching
clamor, shook off their burdens and endeavored to seize the figure that
came bounding ahead of it. But Jim dodged them all. Failing in their
attempt to intercept him, these newcomers joined the chase, and the
fugitive, once the first frenzy of excitement had died in him, heard
their footsteps gaining on him. He was stark mad by now; black terror
throttled him. Then some one fired a shot; that shot was followed by
others; there came a scattered fusillade, and with a mighty leap Jim
McCaskey fell. He collapsed in midair; he was dead when his pursuers
reached him.

Mob spirit is a peculiar thing; its vagaries are difficult to explain
or to analyze. Some trivial occurrence may completely destroy its
temper, or again merely serve to harden it and give it edge. In this
instance the escape, the flight, the short, swift pursuit and its
tragic ending, had the effect, not of sobering the assembled citizens
of Sheep Camp, not of satisfying their long-slumbering rage, but of
inflaming it, of intoxicating them to a state of insane triumph. Like
the Paris mobs that followed shouting, in the wake of the tumbrels
bound for the guillotine, these men came trooping back to the scene of
execution, and as they came they bellowed hoarsely and they waved their
arms.

Men react powerfully to environment; they put on rough ways with rough
clothes. Smooth pavements, soap and hot water, safety-razors, are
strong civilizing agents, but a man begins to revert in the time it
takes his beard to grow. These fellows had left the world they knew
behind them; they were in a world they knew not. Old standards had
fallen, new standards had been reared, new values had attached to
crime, therefore they demanded that the business in hand go on. Such
was the spirit of the Chilkoot trail.

At the first stroke of the descending whip a howl went up--a merciless
howl, a howl of fierce exultation. Joe McCaskey rocked forward upon the
balls of his feet; his frame was racked by a spasm of agony; he
strained at his thongs until his shoulder muscles swelled. The flesh of
his back knotted and writhed; livid streaks leaped out upon it, then
turned crimson and began to trickle blood.

"ONE!" roared the mob.

The wielder of the scourge swung his weapon again; again the leather
strips wrapped around the victim's ribs and laid open their defenseless
covering.

"TWO!"

McCaskey lunged forward, then strained, backward; the tent-frame
creaked as he pulled at it. His head was drawn far back between his
shoulders, his face was convulsed, and his gums were bared in a skyward
grin. If he uttered any sound it was lost in the uproar.

"THREE!"

It was a frightful punishment. The man's flesh was being stripped from
his bones.

"FOUR!"

"FIVE!"

The count went on monotonously, for the fellow with the whip swung
slowly, putting his whole strength behind every blow. When it had
climbed to eight the prisoner's body was dripping with blood, his
trousers-band was sodden with it. When it had reached ten he hung
suspended by his wrists and only a fierce involuntary muscular reaction
answered the caress of the nine lashes.

Forty stripes had been voted as the penalty, but 'Poleon Doret vaulted
to the platform, seized the upraised whip, and tore it from the
executioner's hand. He turned upon the crowd a countenance white with
fury and disgust.

"Enough!" he shouted. "By Gar! You keel him next! If you mus' w'ip
somebody, w'ip me; dis feller is mos' dead." He strode to the post and
with a slash of his hunting-knife cut McCaskey down. This action was
greeted by an angry yell of protest; there was a rush toward the
platform, but 'Poleon was joined by the leader of the posse, who
scrambled through the press and ranged himself in opposition to the
audience. The old man was likewise satiated with this torture; his face
was wet with sweat; beneath his drooping gray mustache his teeth were
set.

"Back up, you hyenas!" he cried, shrilly. "The show's over. The man
took his medicine and he took it like a man. He's had enough."

"Gimme the whip. I'll finish the job," some one shouted.

The former speaker bent forward abristle with defiance.

"You try it!" he spat out. "You touch that whip, and by God, I'll kill
you!" He lent point to this threat by drawing and cocking his
six-shooter. "If you men ain't had enough blood for one day, I'll let a
little more for you." His words ended in a torrent of profanity. "Climb
aboard!" he shrilled. "Who's got the guts to try?"

Doret spoke to him shortly, "Dese men ain't goin' mak' no trouble,
m'sieu'." With that he turned his back and, heedless of the clamor,
began to minister to the bleeding man. He had provided himself with a
bottle of lotion, doubtless some antiseptic snatched from the canvas
drugstore down the street, and with this he wet a handkerchief; then he
washed McCaskey's lacerated back. A member of the committee joined him
in this work of mercy; soon others came to their assistance, and
gradually the crowd began breaking up. Some one handed the sufferer a
drink of whisky, which revived him considerably, and by the time he was
ready to receive his upper garments he was to some extent master of
himself.

Joe McCaskey accepted these attentions without a word of thanks,
without a sign of gratitude. He appeared to be numbed, paralyzed, by
the nervous shock he had undergone, and yet he was not paralyzed, for
his eyes were intensely alive. They were wild, baleful; his roving
glance was like poison to the men it fell upon.

"You're due to leave camp," he was told, "and you're going to take the
first boat from Dyea. Is there anything you want to say, anything you
want to do, before you go?"

"I--want something to--eat," Joe answered, hoarsely. "I'm hungry."
These were the first words he had uttered; they met with astonishment;
nevertheless he was led to the nearest restaurant. Surrounded by a
silent, curious group, he crouched over the board counter and wolfed a
ravenous meal. When he had finished he rose, turned, and stared
questioningly at the circle of hostile faces; his eyes still glittered
with that basilisk glare of hatred and defiance. There was something
huge, disconcerting, about the man. Not once had he appealed for mercy,
not once had he complained, not once had he asked about his brother; he
showed neither curiosity nor concern over Jim's fate, and now he
betrayed the utmost indifference to his own. He merely shifted that
venomous stare from one face to another as if indelibly to photograph
each and every one of them upon his mind.

But the citizens of Sheep Camp were not done with him yet. His hands
were again bound, this time behind him; a blanket roll was roped upon
his shoulders, upon his breast was hung a staring placard which read:

"I am a thief! Spit on me and send me along."

Thus decorated, he met his crowning indignity. Extending from the steps
of the restaurant far down the street twin rows of men had formed, and
this gauntlet Joe McCaskey was forced to run. He bore this ordeal as he
had borne the other. Men jeered at him, they flung handfuls of wet moss
and mud at him, they spat upon him, some even struck him, bound as he
was.

Sickened at the sight, Pierce Phillips witnessed the final chapter of
this tragedy into which the winds of chance had blown him. For one
instant only did his eyes meet those of his former tentmate, but during
that brief glance the latter made plain his undying hatred. McCaskey's
gaze intensified, his upper lip drew back in a grimace similar to that
which he had lifted to the sky when agony ran through his veins like
fire; he seemed to concentrate the last ounce of his soul's energy in
the sending of some wordless message. Hellish fury, a threat too
baneful, too ominous, for expression dwelt in that stare; then a
splatter of mire struck him in the face and blotted it out.

When the last jeer had died away, when the figure of Joe McCaskey had
disappeared into the misty twilight, Phillips drew a deep breath. What
a day this had been, what a tumult he had lived through, what an
experience he had undergone! This was an adventure! He had lived, he
had made an enemy. Life had come his way, and the consciousness of that
fact caused him to tingle. This would be something to talk about; what
would the folks back home say to this? And the Countess--that wonderful
woman of ice and fire! That superwoman who could sway the minds of men,
whose wit was quicker than light. Well, she had saved him, saved his
good name, if not his neck, and his life was hers. Who was she? What
mission brought her here? What hurry crowded on her heels? What idle
chance had flung them into each other's arms? Or was it idle chance?
Was there such a thing as chance, after all? Were not men's random
fortunes all laid out in conformity with some obscure purpose to form a
part of some intricate design? Dust he was, dust blown upon the breath
of the North, as were these other human atoms which had been borne
thither from the farthest quarters of the earth; but when that dust had
settled would it not arrange itself into patterns mapped out at the
hour of birth or long before? Somehow he believed that such would be
the case.

As for the Countess, his way was hers, her way was his; he could not
bear to think of losing her. She was big, she was great, she drew him
by the spell of some strange magic.

The peppery old man who, with Doret's help, had defied the miners'
meeting approached him to inquire:

"Say, why didn't old Tom come back with you from Linderman?"

"Old Tom?"

"Sure! Old Tom Linton. We're pardners. I'm Jerry Quirk."

"He was tired out."

"Tired!" Mr. Quirk snorted derisively. "What tired him? He can't tote
enough grub to satisfy his own hunger. Me, I'm
double-trippin'--relayin' our stuff to the Summit and breakin' my back
at it. I can't make him understand we'd ought to keep the outfit
together; he's got it scattered like a mad woman's hair. But old Tom's
in the sere and yellow leaf: he's onnery, like all old men. I try to
humor him, but--here's a limit." The speaker looked Pierce over
shrewdly. "You said you was packin' for wages. Well, old Tom ain't any
help to me. You look strong. Mebbe I could hire you."

Phillips shook his head. "I don't want work just now," said he. "I'm
going to Dyea in the morning."

Jim McCaskey was buried where he had fallen, and there beside the
trail, so that all who passed might read and ponder, the men of Sheep
Camp raised a board with this inscription:

"Here lies the body of a thief."

CHAPTER VI

A certain romantic glamour attaches to all new countries, but not every
man is responsive to it. To the person who finds enjoyment,
preoccupation, in studying a ruin or in contemplating glories,
triumphs, dramas long dead and gone, old buildings, old cities, and old
worlds sound a resistless call. The past is peopled with impressive
figures, to be sure; it is a tapestry into which are woven scenes of
tremendous significance and events of the greatest moment, and it is
quite natural, therefore, that the majority of people should experience
greater fascination in studying it than in painting new scenes upon a
naked canvas with colors of their own imagining. To them new countries
are crude, uninteresting. But there is another type of mind which finds
a more absorbing spell in the contemplation of things to come than of
things long past; another temperament to which the proven and the tried
possess a flat and tasteless flavor. They are restless, anticipative
people; they are the ones who blaze trails. To them great cities,
established order, the intricate structure of well-settled life, are
both monotonous and oppressive; they do not thrive well thereunder. But
put them out on the fringe of things, transplant them to wild soil, and
the sap runs, they flower rankly.

To Pierce Phillips the new surroundings into which he had been
projected were intensely stimulating; they excited him as he had never
been excited, and each day he awoke to the sense of new adventures.
Life, as he had known it, had always been good--and full, too, for that
matter--and he had hugely enjoyed it; nevertheless, it had impressed
upon him a sense of his own insignificance. He had been lost,
submerged, in it. Here, on the threshold of a new world, he had begun
to find himself, and the experience was delightful. By some magic he
had been lifted to a common level with every other man, and no one had
advantage over him. The momentous future was as much his as theirs and
the God of Luck was in charge of things.

There was a fever in the very air he breathed, the food he ate, the
water he drank. Life ran at a furious pace and it inspired in him
supreme exhilaration to be swept along by it. Over all this new land
was a purple haze of mystery--a sense of the Unknown right at hand. The
Beyond was beckoning; it was as if great curtains had parted and he
beheld vistas of tremendous promise. Keenest of all, perhaps, was his
joy at discovering himself.

Appreciation of this miraculous rebirth was fullest when, at rare
intervals, he came off the trail and back to Dyea, for then he renewed
his touch with that other world, and the contrast became more evident.

Dyea throbbed nowadays beneath a mighty head of steam; it had grown
surprisingly and it was intensely alive. Phillips never came back to it
without an emotional thrill and a realization of great issues, great
undertakings, in process of working out. The knowledge that he had a
part in them aroused in him an intoxicating pleasure.

Dyea had become a metropolis of boards and canvas, of logs and
corrugated iron. Stores had risen, there were hotels and
lodging-houses, busy restaurants and busier saloons whence came the
sounds of revelry by night and by day. It was a healthy revelry, by the
way, like the boisterous hilarity of a robust boy. Dyea was just
that--an overgrown, hilarious boy. There was nothing querulous or
sickly about this child; it was strong, it was sturdy, it was rough; it
romped with everybody and it grew out of its clothes overnight. Every
house, every tent, in the town was crowded; supply never quite overtook
demand.

Pack-animals were being imported, bridges were being built, the swamps
were being hastily corduroyed; there was talk of a tramway up the side
of the Chilkoot, but the gold rush increased daily, and, despite better
means of transportation, the call for packers went unanswered and the
price per pound stayed up. New tribes of Indians from down the coast
had moved thither, babies and baggage, and they were growing rich. The
stampede itself resembled the spring run of the silver salmon--it was
equally mad, equally resistless. It was equally wasteful, too, for
birds and beasts of prey fattened upon it and the outsetting current
bore a burden of derelicts.

Values were extravagant; money ran like water; the town was wide open
and it took toll from every new-comer. The ferment was kept active by a
trickle of outgoing Klondikers, a considerable number of whom passed
through on their way back to the States. These men had been educated to
the liberal ways of the "inside" country and were prodigal spenders.
The scent of the salt sea, the sight of new faces, the proximity of the
open world, were like strong drink to them, hence they untied their
mooseskin "pokes" and scattered the contents like sawdust. Their tales
of the new El Dorado stimulated a similar recklessness among their
hearers.

To a boy like Pierce Phillips, in whom the spirit of youth was a
flaming torch, all this spelled glorious abandon, a supreme riot of
Olympic emotions.

Precisely what reason he had for coming to town this morning he did not
know; nevertheless, he was drawn seaward as by a mighty magnet. He told
himself that ordinary gratitude demanded that he thank the Countess
Courteau for her service to him, but as a matter of fact he was less
interested in voicing his gratitude than in merely seeing her again. He
was not sure but that she would resent his thanks; nevertheless, it was
necessary to seek her out, for already her image was nebulous, and he
could not piece together a satisfactory picture of her. She obsessed
his thoughts, but his intense desire to fix her indelibly therein had
defeated its purpose and had blurred the photograph. Who was she? What
was she? Where was she going? What did she think of him? The
possibility that she might leave Dyea before answering those questions
spurred him into a gait that devoured the miles.

But when he turned into the main street of the town his haste vanished
and a sudden embarrassment overtook him. What would he say to her, now
that he was here? How would he excuse or explain his obvious pursuit?
Would she see through him? If so, what light would kindle in those
ice-blue eyes? The Countess was an unusual woman. She knew men, she
read them clearly, and she knew how to freeze them in their tracks.
Pierce felt quite sure that she would guess his motives, therefore he
made up his mind to dissemble cunningly. He decided to assume a casual
air and to let chance arrange their actual meeting. When he did
encounter her, a quick smile of pleased surprise on his part, a few
simple words of thanks, a manly statement that he was glad she had not
left before his duties permitted him to look her up, and she would be
completely deceived. Thereafter fate would decree how well or how badly
they got acquainted. Yes, that was the way to go about it.

Having laid out this admirable program, he immediately defied it by
making a bee-line for the main hotel, a big board structure still in
process of erection. His feet carried him thither in spite of himself.
Like a homing-pigeon he went, and instinct guided him unerringly, for
he found the Countess Courteau in the office.

She was dressed as on the day before, but by some magic she had managed
to freshen and to brighten herself. In her hand she held her
traveling-bag; she was speaking to the proprietor as Pierce stepped up
behind her.

"Fifteen thousand dollars as it stands," he heard her say. "That's my
price. I'll make you a present of the lumber. The Queen leaves in
twenty minutes."

The proprietor began to argue, but she cut him short: "That's my last
word. Three hundred per cent, on your money."

"But--"

"Think it over!" Her tone was cool, her words were crisp. "I take the
lighter in ten minutes." She turned to find Phillips at her shoulder.

"Good morning!" Her face lit up with a smile; she extended her hand,
and he seized it as a fish swallows a bait. He blushed redly.

"I'm late," he stammered. "I mean I--I hurried right in to tell you--"

"So they didn't hang you?"

"No! You were wonderful! I couldn't rest until I had told you how
deeply grateful--"

"Nonsense!" The Countess shrugged her shoulders. "I'm glad you came
before I left."

"You're not--going away?" he queried, with frank apprehension.

"In ten minutes."

"See here!" It was the hotel proprietor who addressed the woman. "You
can't possibly make it before snow flies, and the boats are overloaded
coming north; they can't handle the freight they've got."

"I'll be back in three weeks," the Countess asserted, positively. "I'll