withstanding, in the scheme of
life, the inability to become fixed is an excellence par excellence.
Though he did not know it, this inability was Vance Corliss's most
splendid possession.

But to return. He looked forward with great sober glee to meeting
Frona Welse, and in the meanwhile consulted often the sun-picture he
carried of her. Though he went over the Pass and down the lakes and
river with a push of money behind him (London syndicates are never
niggardly in such matters). Frona beat him into Dawson by a fortnight.
While on his part money in the end overcame obstacles, on hers the name
of Welse was a talisman greater than treasure. After his arrival, a
couple of weeks were consumed in buying a cabin, presenting his letters
of introduction, and settling down. But all things come in the fulness
of time, and so, one night after the river closed, he pointed his
moccasins in the direction of Jacob Welse's house. Mrs. Schoville, the
Gold Commissioner's wife, gave him the honor of her company.

Corliss wanted to rub his eyes. Steam-heating apparatus in the
Klondike! But the next instant he had passed out of the hall through
the heavy portieres and stood inside the drawing-room. And it was a
drawing-room. His moose-hide moccasins sank luxuriantly into the deep
carpet, and his eyes were caught by a Turner sunrise on the opposite
wall. And there were other paintings and things in bronze. Two Dutch
fireplaces were roaring full with huge back-logs of spruce. There was
a piano; and somebody was singing. Frona sprang from the stool and
came forward, greeting him with both hands. He had thought his
sun-picture perfect, but this fire-picture, this young creature with
the flush and warmth of ringing life, quite eclipsed it. It was a
whirling moment, as he held her two hands in his, one of those moments
when an incomprehensible orgasm quickens the blood and dizzies the
brain. Though the first syllables came to him faintly, Mrs.
Schoville's voice brought him back to himself.

"Oh!" she cried. "You know him!"

And Frona answered, "Yes, we met on the Dyea Trail; and those who meet
on the Dyea Trail can never forget."

"How romantic!"

The Gold Commissioner's wife clapped her hands. Though fat and forty,
and phlegmatic of temperament, between exclamations and hand-clappings
her waking existence was mostly explosive. Her husband secretly
averred that did God Himself deign to meet her face to face, she wou