ing under the loads to
the boat. Here, on the banks, Mrs. Sayther waited till the luggage was
made ship-shape and her nest prepared.

"We line up to de head of de island," Pierre explained to her while
running out the long tow rope. "Den we tak to das back channel, where de
water not queek, and I t'ink we mak good tam."

A scuffling and pattering of feet in the last year's dry grass caught his
quick ear, and he turned his head. The Indian girl, circled by a
bristling ring of wolf dogs, was coming toward them. Mrs. Sayther noted
that the girl's face, which had been apathetic throughout the scene in
the cabin, had now quickened into blazing and wrathful life.

"What you do my man?" she demanded abruptly of Mrs. Sayther. "Him lay on
bunk, and him look bad all the time. I say, 'What the matter, Dave? You
sick?' But him no say nothing. After that him say, 'Good girl Winapie,
go way. I be all right bimeby.' What you do my man, eh? I think you
bad woman."

Mrs. Sayther looked curiously at the barbarian woman who shared the life
of this man, while she departed alone in the darkness of night.

"I think you bad woman," Winapie repeated in the slow, methodical way of
one who gropes for strange words in an alien tongue. "I think better you
go way, no come no more. Eh? What you think? I have one man. I Indian
girl. You 'Merican woman. You good to see. You find plenty men. Your
eyes blue like the sky. Your skin so white, so soft."

Coolly she thrust out a brown forefinger and pressed the soft cheek of
the other woman. And to the eternal credit of Karen Sayther, she never
flinched. Pierre hesitated and half stepped forward; but she motioned
him away, though her heart welled to him with secret gratitude. "It's
all right, Pierre," she said. "Please go away."

He stepped back respectfully out of earshot, where he stood grumbling to
himself and measuring the distance in springs.

"Um white, um soft, like baby." Winapie touched the other cheek and
withdrew her hand. "Bimeby mosquito come. Skin get sore in spot; um
swell, oh, so big; um hurt, oh, so much. Plenty mosquito; plenty spot. I
think better you go now before mosquito come. This way," pointing down
the stream, "you go St. Michael's; that way," pointing up, "you go Dyea.
Better you go Dyea. Good-by."

And that which Mrs. Sayther then did, caused Pierre to marvel greatly.
For she threw her arms around the Indian girl, kissed her, and burst int