to make a much larger cage for the pigeon. As he told
Ellen, the bird, confined in such close quarters, might not thrive.

Harlan noticed that despite Ellen's determination to leave the Island
on the coming of the _Hoonah_ she took a woman's delight in doing her
best to make life comfortable with the few things at her command.
Since it was the dictum of fate--if she would be with the man she
loved--that she must spend so much of her married life in tents along
new trails, floating down rivers in flatboats, or wayfaring in
trappers' cabins, she sooner or later accepted those conditions.
Doubtless, many times she rebelled in her heart. Any woman would.
But, he fancied, she was the kind who would chide herself for the
momentary disloyalty to Shane and with an increased tenderness, set her
capable, feminine touch to perform some new marvel of transformation in
each wild place of the moment.

In the cabin on Kon Klayu she accomplished much. With newspapers and
magazines found in the box of books from Add-'em-up Sam's collection,
she papered the rooms. At the new windows which framed a wide expanse
of ever-changing sea, giving a sense of space and freedom to the
living-room, she hung cheese-cloth curtains. The folds of these draped
a book shelf beside the window, supporting few books but holding in its
empty space the gold-scale, unused as yet on Kon Klayu, and glinting
newly as it caught the light on its polished surface. In a corner of
the room the bed was gay with Indian blankets and bright cushions. The
homely cheer of a red tablecloth was reflected in the bright nickel of
the shaded lamp on the table, and on the white, sand-scoured floor a
long strip of rag carpet from Ellen's old home in the States, made a
note of old-fashioned, comforting cleanliness. On the Yukon stove the
kettle sang cheerily to the pots and pans hanging in a shining row on
the wall behind and the room was pervaded by the faint, clean smell
from the woodbox piled high with newly-split wood that had lain long in
the sea.

Harlan followed Boreland into the house the day Ellen finished her
curtains. He came upon the big prospector standing with his arm across
his wife's shoulders.

"I'm blessed of the saints, entirely," Shane was saying, as he bent to
lay his cheek affectionately against her hair. "God love you, Ellen,
little fellow. . . . you could make a home out of a drygoods box." . . .

After the rescue of Loll and Jean at the bluff