bailing satisfactorily?" she demanded, indignantly.

"Yep. You're doin' all right; but, but, you are--are--"

"Just what I was before you knew who I was. Now you go on
rowing,--that's your share of the work; and I'll take care of mine."

"Oh, you'll do!" he murmured ecstatically, bending afresh to the oars.
"And Jacob Welse is your old man? I oughter 'a known it, sure!"

When they reached the sand-spit, crowded with heterogeneous piles of
merchandise and buzzing with men, she stopped long enough to shake
hands with her ferryman. And though such a proceeding on the part of
his feminine patrons was certainly unusual, Del Bishop squared it
easily with the fact that she was Jacob Welse's daughter.

"Remember, my last bit of grub is yours," he reassured her, still
holding her hand.

"And your last shirt, too; don't forget."

"Well, you're a--a--a crackerjack!" he exploded with a final squeeze.
"Sure!"

Her short skirt did not block the free movement of her limbs, and she
discovered with pleasurable surprise that the quick tripping step of
the city pavement had departed from her, and that she was swinging off
in the long easy stride which is born of the trail and which comes only
after much travail and endeavor. More than one gold-rusher, shooting
keen glances at her ankles and gray-gaitered calves, affirmed Del
Bishop's judgment. And more than one glanced up at her face, and
glanced again; for her gaze was frank, with the frankness of
comradeship; and in her eyes there was always a smiling light, just
trembling on the verge of dawn; and did the onlooker smile, her eyes
smiled also. And the smiling light was protean-mooded,--merry,
sympathetic, joyous, quizzical,--the complement of whatsoever kindled
it. And sometimes the light spread over all her face, till the smile
prefigured by it was realized. But it was always in frank and open
comradeship.

And there was much to cause her to smile as she hurried through the
crowd, across the sand-spit, and over the flat towards the log-building
she had pointed out to Mr. Thurston. Time had rolled back, and
locomotion and transportation were once again in the most primitive
stages. Men who had never carried more than parcels in all their lives
had now become bearers of burdens. They no longer walked upright under
the sun, but stooped the body forward and bowed the head to the earth.
Every back had become a pack-saddle, and the strap-galls were beginning
to form.