timate destination of the case-hardened
sinner. After that the owner of the dogs bestirred himself, made
complaint to Constantine, and from him received the loan of a policeman.

III

With Circle City in prospect and the last ice crumbling under his
runners, Montana Kid took advantage of the lengthening days and travelled
his dogs late and early. Further, he had but little doubt that the owner
of the dogs in question had taken his trail, and he wished to make
American territory before the river broke. But by the afternoon of the
third day it became evident that he had lost in his race with spring. The
Yukon was growling and straining at its fetters. Long detours became
necessary, for the trail had begun to fall through into the swift current
beneath, while the ice, in constant unrest, was thundering apart in great
gaping fissures. Through these and through countless airholes, the water
began to sweep across the surface of the ice, and by the time he pulled
into a woodchopper's cabin on the point of an island, the dogs were being
rushed off their feet and were swimming more often than not. He was
greeted sourly by the two residents, but he unharnessed and proceeded to
cook up.

Donald and Davy were fair specimens of frontier inefficients. Canadian-
born, city-bred Scots, in a foolish moment they had resigned their
counting-house desks, drawn upon their savings, and gone Klondiking. And
now they were feeling the rough edge of the country. Grubless,
spiritless, with a lust for home in their hearts, they had been staked by
the P. C. Company to cut wood for its steamers, with the promise at the
end of a passage home. Disregarding the possibilities of the ice-run,
they had fittingly demonstrated their inefficiency by their choice of the
island on which they located. Montana Kid, though possessing little
knowledge of the break-up of a great river, looked about him dubiously,
and cast yearning glances at the distant bank where the towering bluffs
promised immunity from all the ice of the Northland.

After feeding himself and dogs, he lighted his pipe and strolled out to
get a better idea of the situation. The island, like all its river
brethren, stood higher at the upper end, and it was here that Donald and
Davy had built their cabin and piled many cords of wood. The far shore
was a full mile away, while between the island and the near shore lay a
back-channel perhaps a hundred yards across. At first sig