ew 'em all up in a circle about her and gave 'em each a
handful of money above their pay. 'That's because I love you,' she says,
and then she begins asking them funny questions. Did they have wives and
children? Were they ever hungry? Did they ever know about any of their
people starving to death? And just _why_ did they starve? And, Alan, so
help me thunder if them Indians didn't talk! Never heard Indians tell so
much. And in the end she asked them the funniest question of all, asked
them if they'd heard of a man named John Graham. One of them had, and
afterward I saw her talking a long time with him alone, and when she
come back to me, her eyes were sort of burning up, and she didn't say
good night when she went into her tent. That's all, Alan, except--"

"Except what, Stampede?" said Alan, his heart throbbing like a drum
inside him.

Stampede took his time to answer, and Alan heard him chuckling and saw a
flash of humor in the little man's eyes.

"Except that she's done with everyone on the Range just what she did
with me between Chitina and here," he said. "Alan, if she wants to say
the word, why, _you_ ain't boss any more, that's all. She's been there
ten days, and you won't know the place. It's all done up in flags,
waiting for you. She an' Nawadlook and Keok are running everything but
the deer. The kids would leave their mothers for her, and the men--" He
chuckled again. "Why, the men even go to the Sunday school she's
started! I went. Nawadlook sings."

For a moment he was silent. Then he said in a subdued voice, "Alan,
you've been a big fool."

"I know it, Stampede."

"She's a--a flower, Alan. She's worth more than all the gold in the
world. And you could have married her. I know it. But it's too late now.
I'm warnin' you."

"I don't quite understand, Stampede. Why is it too late?"

"Because she likes me," declared Stampede a bit fiercely. "I'm after
her myself, Alan. You can't butt in now."

"Great Scott!" gasped Alan. "You mean that Mary Standish--"

"I'm not talking about Mary Standish," said Stampede. "It's Nawadlook.
If it wasn't for my whiskers--"

His words were broken by a sudden detonation which came out of the pale
gloom ahead of them. It was like the explosion of a cannon a long
distance away.

"One of them cussed bums," he explained. "That's why they hurried on
ahead of us, Alan. _She_ says this Fourth of July celebration is going
to mean a lot for Alaska. Wonder what she means?"

"