ike a startled caribou
he fled to a comely young Indian woman standing near the trail.

With gleaming eyes Holt turned to Elliot. "Take a good look at the
squaw," he said in a low voice.

Elliot glanced at the woman behind whose skirts the youngster was
hiding. He smiled and nodded pleasantly to her.

"She's not bad looking if that's what you mean," he said after they had
taken up the trail again.

"You ain't the only white man that has thought that," retorted the old
miner significantly.

"No?" Gordon had learned to let Holt tell things at his leisure. It
usually took less time than to try to hurry him.

"Name of the kid mean anything to you?"

"Can't say it did."

"Hm! Named for his dad. First syllable of each of his names."

The land inspector stopped in his stride and wheeled upon Holt. His eyes
asked eagerly a question. "You don't mean Colby Macdonald?"

"Why don't I?"

"But--Good Lord, he isn't a squawman, is he?"

"Not in the usual meaning of the word. She never cooked and kept house
for him. Just the same, little Colmac is his kid. Couldn't you see it
sticking out all over him? He's the spit'n' image of his dad."

"I see it now you've pointed it out. I was trying to think who he
reminded me of. Of course it was Macdonald."

"Mac met up with Meteetse when he first scouted this country for coal
five years ago. So far's I know he was square enough with the girl. She
never claimed he made any promises or anything like that. He sends a
check down once a quarter to the trader here for her and the kid."

But young Elliot was not thinking about Meteetse. His mind's eye saw
another picture--the girl at Kusiak, listening spellbound to the tales
of a man whose actions translated romance into life for her, a girl
swept from the quiet backwaters of an Irish village to this land of
the midnight sun with its amazing contrasts.

And all the way up on the boat she continued to fill his mind. The
slowness of the steamer fretted him. He paced up and down the deck for
hours at a time worried and anxious. Sometimes the jealousy in his heart
flamed up like a prairie fire when it comes to a brush heap. The outrage
of it set him blazing with indignation. Diane ought to be whipped, he
told himself, for her part in the deception. It was no less than a
conspiracy. What could an innocent young girl like Sheba know of such
a man as Colby Macdonald? Her imagination conceived, no doubt, an
idealized vision of him. But the