red and
heeded than decrees of emperors or edicts of kings. And there, in the
time-blackened cabin that had once been _his_ cabin, these men talked
and the girl listened while her eyes glowed with pride as they
recounted the exploits of Tiger Elliston. And, as they talked, the
hearts of these men warmed, and the years rolled backward, and they
swore weird oaths, and hammered the thick planks of the chart-table
with bangs of approving fists, and invoked the blessings of strange
gods upon the soul of the Tiger--and their curses upon the souls of his
enemies.

Nor were these men slow to return hospitality, and Chloe Elliston was
entertained royally in halls of lavish splendour, and plied with costly
gifts and rare. And honoured by the men, and the sons and daughters of
men who had fought side by side with the Tiger in the days when the
yellow sands ran red, and tall masts and white sails rose like clouds
from the blue fog of the cannon-crashing powder-smoke.

So, from the lips of governors and potentates, native princes and
rajahs, the girl learned of the deeds of her grandsire, and in their
eyes she read approval, and respect, and reverence even greater than
her own--for these were the men who knew him. But, not alone from the
mighty did she learn. For, over rice-cakes and _poi_, in the thatched
hovels of Malays, Kayans, and savage Dyaks, she heard the tale from the
lips of the vanquished men--men who still hated, yet always respected,
the reddened sword of the Tiger.

The year Chloe Elliston spent among the copra-ports of the South Seas
was the shaping year of her destiny. Never again were the standards of
her compeers to be her standards--never again the measure of the world
of convention to be her measure. For, in her heart the awakened spirit
of Tiger Elliston burned and seared like a living flame, calling for
other wilds to conquer, other savages to subdue--to crush down, if need
be, that it might build up into the very civilization of which the
unconquerable spirit is the forerunner, yet which, in realization,
palls and deadens it to extinction.

For social triumphs the girl cared nothing. The heart of her felt the
irresistible call of the raw. She returned to the land of her birth
and deliberately, determinedly, in the face of opposition, ridicule,
advice, and command--as Tiger Elliston, himself, would have done--she
cast about until she found the raw, upon the rim of the Arctic. And,
with the avowed