timers,--'sour-doughs' as they proudly call themselves.
Just because they have been in the country a few years, they let
themselves grow wild and woolly and glorify in it. They may not know
it, but it is a pose. In so far as they cultivate salient
peculiarities, they cultivate falseness to themselves and live lies."

"I hardly think you are wholly just," Frona said, in defence of her
chosen heroes. "I do like what you say about the matter in general,
and I detest posing, but the majority of the old-timers would be
peculiar in any country, under any circumstances. That peculiarity is
their own; it is their mode of expression. And it is, I am sure, just
what makes them go into new countries. The normal man, of course,
stays at home."

"Oh, I quite agree with you, Miss Welse," he temporized easily. "I did
not intend it so sweepingly. I meant to brand that sprinkling among
them who are _poseurs_. In the main, as you say, they are honest, and
sincere, and natural."

"Then we have no quarrel. But Mr. St. Vincent, before you go, would
you care to come to-morrow evening? We are getting up theatricals for
Christmas. I know you can help us greatly, and I think it will not be
altogether unenjoyable to you. All the younger people are
interested,--the officials, officers of police, mining engineers,
gentlemen rovers, and so forth, to say nothing of the nice women. You
are bound to like them."

"I am sure I shall," as he took her hand. "Tomorrow, did you say?"

"To-morrow evening. Good-night."

A brave man, she told herself as she went bade from the door, and a
splendid type of the race.

CHAPTER XIII

Gregory St. Vincent swiftly became an important factor in the social
life of Dawson. As a representative of the Amalgamated Press
Association, he had brought with him the best credentials a powerful
influence could obtain, and over and beyond, he was well qualified
socially by his letters of introduction. It developed in a quiet way
that he was a wanderer and explorer of no small parts, and that he had
seen life and strife pretty well all over the earth's crust. And
withal, he was so mild and modest about it, that nobody, not even among
the men, was irritated by his achievements. Incidentally, he ran
across numerous old acquaintances. Jacob Welse he had met at St.
Michael's in the fall of '88, just prior to his crossing Bering Straits
on the ice. A month or so later, Father Barnum (who had come up