it? about her? now?"

She did not answer, but went back to the waiting group. Lucile saw her
coming and watched her face.

"He's been telling you--?"

"That I am a fool," Frona answered. "And I think I am." And with a
smile, "I take it on faith that I am, anyway. I--I can't reason it out
just now, but. . ."

Captain Alexander discovered a prenuptial joke just about then, and led
the way over to the stove to crack it upon the colonel, and Vance went
along to see fair play.

"It's the first time," Lucile was saying, "and it means more to me, so
much more, than to . . . most women. I am afraid. It is a terrible
thing for me to do. But I do love him, I do!" And when the joke had
been duly digested and they came back, she was sobbing, "Dear, dear
Frona."

It was just the moment, better than he could have chosen; and capped
and mittened, without knocking, Jacob Welse came in.

"The uninvited guest," was his greeting. "Is it all over? So?" And
he swallowed Lucile up in his huge bearskin. "Colonel, your hand, and
your pardon for my intruding, and your regrets for not giving me the
word. Come, out with them! Hello, Corliss! Captain Alexander, a good
day."

"What have I done?" Frona wailed, received the bear-hug, and managed to
press his hand till it almost hurt.

"Had to back the game," he whispered; and this time his hand did hurt.

"Now, colonel, I don't know what your plans are, and I don't care.
Call them off. I've got a little spread down to the house, and the
only honest case of champagne this side of Circle. Of course, you're
coming, Corliss, and--" His eye roved past Captain Alexander with
hardly a pause.

"Of course," came the answer like a flash, though the Chief Magistrate
of the Northwest had had time to canvass the possible results of such
unofficial action. "Got a hack?"

Jacob Welse laughed and held up a moccasined foot. "Walking
be--chucked!" The captain started impulsively towards the door. "I'll
have the sleds up before you're ready. Three of them, and bells
galore!"

So Trethaway's forecast was correct, and Dawson vindicated its
agglutinativeness by rubbing its eyes when three sleds, with three
scarlet-tuniced policemen swinging the whips, tore down its main
street; and it rubbed its eyes again when it saw the occupants thereof.

"We shall live quietly," Lucile told Frona. "The Klondike is not all
the world, and the best is yet to come."

But Jacob Welse said oth