changed much since his landing on Kon Klayu. Under the rigors of
hardship, of physical labor, of abstinence, he had developed a clean-cut
masculinity that was strangely reassuring. She remembered how
unconsciously, during these past weeks, she had turned to him for the
steadiness which others had lacked; how instinctively she had counted on
him for a perception of the little things, the smaller needs, which are
so often the greater ones. After all, she reminded herself, in the day
by day stresses of life, it was this gift of understanding, of sympathy
with the innate needs, that counted so tremendously.

She pictured Jean, with her warm emotions, her love of the finer beauties
of life, thrown into the rough and changing currents of existence as the
wife of a man older, sturdier, perhaps, than Gregg, but without his
steadier gentleness. Ellen shrank instinctively from the thought. And
Gregg had changed--of that there was no doubt. There was no longer a
sign of his old subservience to the poisonous brew of Katleean; instead
there was every evidence that he was not another man, but in a greater,
stronger way, the man he had once been.

After all, Ellen thought, who was she to determine for Jean the sort of
man the girl should choose--she who had permitted herself compromising
entanglements with such a one as the White Chief! With Gregg Jean was
safer at that moment than was she in her own tragic situation--safer and
cleaner in her motives! . . . With something of appeal for the steadying
power of his friendship in her need, whose eventualities would be as
vital to Jean as to herself, Ellen turned with a new warmth in her manner
to greet the young man. Discussing the phenomenon of the bird migration,
she went with him down the trail to the cabin.

As they approached the house Lollie came rushing up from the beach,
holding something tightly in his little hand. He was shouting excitedly
and at his urging the family gathered curiously around him to find
themselves electrified at the disclosure of what the youngster held. It
was a nugget, fully an ounce in weight! He had found it, he explained,
on the bedrock below Bear Paw Lake.

Boreland went off immediately to prospect with Kayak Bill and Harlan.
Contrary to all previous experience, this gold had not been uncovered by
a storm--there had been no storm. Then there must be a place where the
yellow metal lay otherwise revealed. Somewhere on the Island must be a