n than
lose. He walked over to his partner, who whirled upon him fiercely:-

"Now you just shut up, Corry! I know all you're going to say--that you'd
rather stay in and let me go, and all that; so don't say it. You've your
own people in Detroit to see, and that's enough. Besides, you can do for
me the very thing I expected to do if I went out."

"And that is--?"

Pentfield read the full question in his partner's eyes, and answered:-

"Yes, that very thing. You can bring her in to me. The only difference
will be a Dawson wedding instead of a San Franciscan one."

"But, man alike!" Corry Hutchinson objected "how under the sun can I
bring her in? We're not exactly brother and sister, seeing that I have
not even met her, and it wouldn't be just the proper thing, you know, for
us to travel together. Of course, it would be all right--you and I know
that; but think of the looks of it, man!"

Pentfield swore under his breath, consigning the looks of it to a less
frigid region than Alaska.

"Now, if you'll just listen and not get astride that high horse of yours
so blamed quick," his partner went on, "you'll see that the only fair
thing under the circumstances is for me to let you go out this year. Next
year is only a year away, and then I can take my fling."

Pentfield shook his head, though visibly swayed by the temptation.

"It won't do, Corry, old man. I appreciate your kindness and all that,
but it won't do. I'd be ashamed every time I thought of you slaving away
in here in my place."

A thought seemed suddenly to strike him. Burrowing into his bunk and
disrupting it in his eagerness, he secured a writing-pad and pencil, and
sitting down at the table, began to write with swiftness and certitude.

"Here," he said, thrusting the scrawled letter into his partner's hand.
"You just deliver that and everything'll be all right."

Hutchinson ran his eye over it and laid it down.

"How do you know the brother will be willing to make that beastly trip in
here?" he demanded.

"Oh, he'll do it for me--and for his sister," Pentfield replied. "You
see, he's tenderfoot, and I wouldn't trust her with him alone. But with
you along it will be an easy trip and a safe one. As soon as you get
out, you'll go to her and prepare her. Then you can take your run east
to your own people, and in the spring she and her brother'll be ready to
start with you. You'll like her, I know, right from the jump; and from
that, yo