the sun sifting down upon them through the green pine
needles, the robins singing overhead, and a colony of crickets chirping
in the warmth.

CHAPTER XXVI

Frona woke, slowly, as though from a long dream. She was lying where
she had fallen, across Corliss's legs, while he, on his back, faced the
hot sun without concern. She crawled up to him. He was breathing
regularly, with closed eyes, which opened to meet hers. He smiled, and
she sank down again. Then he rolled over on his side, and they looked
at each other.

"Vance."

"Yes."

She reached out her hand; his closed upon it, and their eyelids
fluttered and drooped down. The river still rumbled en, somewhere in
the infinite distance, but it came to them like the murmur of a world
forgotten. A soft languor encompassed them. The golden sunshine
dripped down upon them through the living green, and all the life of
the warm earth seemed singing. And quiet was very good. Fifteen long
minutes they drowsed, and woke again.

Frona sat up. "I--I was afraid," she said.

"Not you."

"Afraid that I might be afraid," she amended, fumbling with her hair.

"Leave it down. The day merits it."

She complied, with a toss of the head which circled it with a nimbus of
rippling yellow.

"Tommy's gone," Corliss mused, the race with the ice coming slowly back.

"Yes," she answered. "I rapped him on the knuckles. It was terrible.
But the chance is we've a better man in the canoe, and we must care for
him at once. Hello! Look there!" Through the trees, not a score of
feet away, she saw the wall of a large cabin. "Nobody in sight. It
must be deserted, or else they're visiting, whoever they are. You look
to our man, Vance,--I'm more presentable,--and I'll go and see."

She skirted the cabin, which was a large one for the Yukon country, and
came around to where it fronted on the river. The door stood open,
and, as she paused to knock, the whole interior flashed upon her in an
astounding picture,--a cumulative picture, or series of pictures, as it
were. For first she was aware of a crowd of men, and of some great
common purpose upon which all were seriously bent. At her knock they
instinctively divided, so that a lane opened up, flanked by their
pressed bodies, to the far end of the room. And there, in the long
bunks on either side, sat two grave rows of men. And midway between,
against the wall, was a table. This table seemed the centre of
interest