g. What I have done speaks for me as
a guidepost to what I mean to do."

"I know," the girl admitted with the impetuous generosity of her race.
"I hear it from everybody. You have built towns and railroads and
developed mines and carried the twentieth century into new outposts. You
have given work to thousands. But you go so fast I can't keep step with
you. I am one of the little folks for whom laws were made."

"Then I'll make a new code for you," he said, smiling. "Just do as I say
and everything will come out right."

Faintly her smile met his. "My grandmother might have agreed to that.
But we live in a new world for women. They have to make their own
decisions. I suppose that is a part of the penalty we pay for freedom."

Diane came into the room and Macdonald turned to her.

"I have just been telling Sheba that I am going to marry her--that there
is no escape for her. She had better get used to the idea that I intend
to make her happy."

The older cousin glanced at Sheba and laughed with a touch of
embarrassment. "Whether she wants to be happy or not, O Cave Man?"

"I'm going to make her want to."

Sheba fled, but from the door she flung back her challenge. "I don't
think so."

CHAPTER XX

GORDON FINDS HIMSELF UNPOPULAR

Macdonald kept his word to Sheba. He used his influence to get Elliot
released, and with a touch of cynicism quite characteristic went on the
bond of his rival. An information was filed against the field agent of
the Land Department for highway robbery and attempted murder, but Gordon
went about his business just as if he were not under a cloud.

None the less, he walked the streets a marked man. Women and children
looked at him curiously and whispered as he passed. The sullen, hostile
eyes of miners measured him silently. He was aware that feeling had
focused against him with surprising intensity of resentment, and he
suspected that the whispers of Wally Selfridge were largely responsible
for this.

For Wally saw to it that in the minds of the miners Elliot in his own
person stood for the enemies of the open-Alaska policy. He scattered
broadcast garbled extracts from the first preliminary report of the
field agent, and in the coal camps he spread the impression that the
whole mining activities of the Territory would be curtailed if Elliot
had his way.

In the States the fight between the coal claimants and their foes was
growing more bitter. The muckrakers were busy, and