all men who delighted her by word or deed? He did not mind
her fingers closing round his, but somehow it seemed wanton when shared
with the next comer. By the time he had thought thus far, Frona had
explained the topic under discussion, and Captain Alexander was
testifying.

"I don't know much about your Slav and other kin, except that they are
good workers and strong; but I do know that the white man is the
greatest and best breed in the world. Take the Indian, for instance.
The white man comes along and beats him at all his games, outworks him,
out-roughs him, out-fishes him, out-hunts him. As far back as their
myths go, the Alaskan Indians have packed on their backs. But the
gold-rushers, as soon as they had learned the tricks of the trade,
packed greater loads and packed them farther than did the Indians.
Why, last May, the Queen's birthday, we had sports on the river. In
the one, two, three, four, and five men canoe races we beat the Indians
right and left. Yet they had been born to the paddle, and most of us
had never seen a canoe until man-grown."

"But why is it?" Corliss queried.

"I do not know why. I only know that it is. I simply bear witness. I
do know that we do what they cannot do, and what they can do, we do
better."

Frona nodded her head triumphantly at Corliss. "Come, acknowledge your
defeat, so that we may go in to dinner. Defeat for the time being, at
least. The concrete facts of paddles and pack-straps quite overcome
your dogmatics. Ah, I thought so. More time? All the time in the
world. But let us go in. We'll see what my father thinks of it,--and
Mr. Kellar. A symposium on Anglo-Saxon supremacy!"

Frost and enervation are mutually repellant. The Northland gives a
keenness and zest to the blood which cannot be obtained in warmer
climes. Naturally so, then, the friendship which sprang up between
Corliss and Frona was anything but languid. They met often under her
father's roof-tree, and went many places together. Each found a
pleasurable attraction in the other, and a satisfaction which the
things they were not in accord with could not mar. Frona liked the man
because he was a man. In her wildest flights she could never imagine
linking herself with any man, no matter how exalted spiritually, who
was not a man physically. It was a delight to her and a joy to look
upon the strong males of her kind, with bodies comely in the sight of
God and muscles swelling with the