d her cache with their best provisions, and she was told
that her credit was limitless.

Through all the ages man has been held the chief instigator of the woes
of woman; but in this case the men held their tongues and swore harshly
at one of their number who was away, while the women failed utterly to
emulate them. So, without needless delay, Madeline heard strange tales
of Cal Galbraith's doings; also, of a certain Greek dancer who played
with men as children did with bubbles. Now Madeline was an Indian
woman, and further, she had no woman friend to whom to go for wise
counsel. She prayed and planned by turns, and that night, being quick
of resolve and action, she harnessed the dogs, and with Young Cal
securely lashed to the sled, stole away.

Though the Yukon still ran free, the eddy-ice was growing, and each day
saw the river dwindling to a slushy thread. Save him who has done the
like, no man may know what she endured in traveling a hundred miles on
the rim-ice; nor may they understand the toil and hardship of breaking
the two hundred miles of packed ice which remained after the river
froze for good. But Madeline was an Indian woman, so she did these
things, and one night there came a knock at Malemute Kid's door.
Thereat he fed a team of starving dogs, put a healthy youngster to bed,
and turned his attention to an exhausted woman. He removed her icebound
moccasins while he listened to her tale, and stuck the point of his
knife into her feet that he might see how far they were frozen.

Despite his tremendous virility, Malemute Kid was possessed of a
softer, womanly element, which could win the confidence of a snarling
wolf-dog or draw confessions from the most wintry heart. Nor did he
seek them. Hearts opened to him as spontaneously as flowers to the sun.
Even the priest, Father Roubeau, had been known to confess to him,
while the men and women of the Northland were ever knocking at his
door--a door from which the latch-string hung always out. To Madeline,
he could do no wrong, make no mistake. She had known him from the time
she first cast her lot among the people of her father's race; and to
her half-barbaric mind it seemed that in him was centered the wisdom of
the ages, that between his vision and the future there could be no
intervening veil.

There were false ideals in the land. The social strictures of Dawson
were not synonymous with those of the previous era, and the swift
maturity of the Northland invo