her feet first. Nor was Murray a second behind her.
Both were gazing intently out in the growing dusk. Simultaneously an
exclamation broke from them. Then the girl spoke while the man
remained silent.

"Canoes," she said. "One, two, three, four--five. Five canoes. I
know whose they are."

Murray was standing close beside her, the roundness of his ungainly
figure aggravated by the contrast. He, too, was gazing hard at the
flotilla. He, too, had counted the canoes as they came into view. He,
too, had recognized them, just as he had recognized the thrill of
delighted anticipation in the girl's voice as she announced her
recognition of them.

He knew, no one better, all that lay behind the shining gray of the
girl's eyes as she beheld the canoes approach. He needed no words to
tell him. And he thanked his stars for the interruption which had
saved him carrying his moment of folly further.

His eyes expressed no anticipation. Their glowing fires seemed to have
become extinguished. There was no warmth in them. There was little
life in their darkly brooding watchfulness. Never was a contrast so
deeply marked between two watchers of the same object. The man was
cold, his expression hard. It was an expression before which even his
habitual smile had been forced to flee. Jessie was radiant.
Excitement surged till she wanted to cry out. To call the name that
was on her lips.

Instead, however, she turned swiftly upon the man at her side, who
instantly read the truth in the radiant gray eyes gazing into his.

"It's--John Kars," she said soberly. Then in a moment came a
repetition. "Fancy. John Kars!"

CHAPTER VIII

TWO MEN OF THE NORTH

North, south, east, west. There was, perhaps, no better known name in
the wide northern wilderness than that of John Kars. In his buoyant
way he claimed for himself, at thirty-two, that he was the "oldest
inhabitant" of the northland.

Nor was he without some justification. For, at the age of thirteen,
accompanying his father, he had formed one of the small band of gold
seekers who fought their way to the "placers" of Forty-mile Creek years
before the great Yukon rush.

He was one of those who helped to open the gates of the country. His
child's muscles and courage had done their duty beside those of far
older men. They had taken their share in forcing the icy portals of a
land unknown, and terror-ridden. He had endured the agony of the first
great