sion was brushed from her face
save the infinite tiredness. She smiled wistfully at the girl, and
without a word turned and went down the trail.

And without a word Frona sprang upon her sled and was off. The way was
wide, and Corliss swung in his dogs abreast of hers. The smouldering
rebellion flared up, and she seemed to gather to herself some of the
woman's recklessness.

"You brute!"

The words left her mouth, sharp, clear-cut, breaking the silence like
the lash of a whip. The unexpectedness of it, and the savagery, took
Corliss aback. He did not know what to do or say.

"Oh, you coward! You coward!"

"Frona! Listen to me--"

But she cut him off. "No. Do not speak. You can have nothing to say.
You have behaved abominably. I am disappointed in you. It is
horrible! horrible!"

"Yes, it was horrible,--horrible that she should walk with you, have
speech with you, be seen with you."

"'Not until the sun excludes you, do I exclude you,'" she flung back at
him.

"But there is a fitness of things--"

"Fitness!" She turned upon him and loosed her wrath. "If she is unfit,
are you fit? May you cast the first stone with that smugly
sanctimonious air of yours?"

"You shall not talk to me in this fashion. I'll not have it."

He clutched at her sled, and even in the midst of her anger she noticed
it with a little thrill of pleasure.

"Shall not? You coward!"

He reached out as though to lay hands upon her, and she raised her
coiled whip to strike. But to his credit he never flinched; his white
face calmly waited to receive the blow. Then she deflected the stroke,
and the long lash hissed out and fell among the dogs. Swinging the
whip briskly, she rose to her knees on the sled and called frantically
to the animals. Hers was the better team, and she shot rapidly away
from Corliss. She wished to get away, not so much from him as from
herself, and she encouraged the huskies into wilder and wilder speed.
She took the steep river-bank in full career and dashed like a
whirlwind through the town and home. Never in her life had she been in
such a condition; never had she experienced such terrible anger. And
not only was she already ashamed, but she was frightened and afraid of
herself.

CHAPTER X

The next morning Corliss was knocked out of a late bed by Bash, one of
Jacob Welse's Indians. He was the bearer of a brief little note from
Frona, which contained a request for the mining engin