yes and, woman-like, straightened out her
gown and smoothed her hair with little feminine touches.

"I--I--hope you'll excuse me for acting this way," she smiled at him,
piteously; then, observing his strange features, "Why, what is the
matter, Mr. Stark; are you angry?"

His hawklike face was strained and colorless, his black eyes fierce and
eager, his body bent as if to pounce upon a victim. In truth he was now
the predatory animal.

"No," he replied, as if her question carried no meaning; then, coming
to himself, "No--no! of course not, but--you gave me a start. You
reminded me of some one. How do you come to be dressed like that? I
never knew you had such clothes?"

"Poleon brought them from Dawson; they are the first I ever had."

He shook his head in a slow, puzzled fashion.

"You look just like a white girl--I mean--I don't know what I mean."
This time he roused himself fully, the effort being more like a shudder.

"So I have always thought," she said, and her eyes filled again.

"Your skin is like milk beneath your tan, and--I don't mean any
disrespect, but--Well, I'm just so damned surprised! Come over here and
sit down while I mix you something to put the heart back into you."

He shoved forward a big chair with a wolf-skin flung over it, into
which she sank dejectedly, while he stepped to the shelves beside the
Yukon stove and took down a bottle and some glasses. She glanced about
with faint curiosity, but the interior of the cabin showed nothing out
of the ordinary, consisting as it did of one room with a cot in the
corner, upon which were tumbled blankets, and above which was a row of
pegs. Opposite was a sheet-iron box-stove supported knee-high on a
tin-capped framework of wood, and in the centre a table with oil-cloth
cover. Around the walls were some cooking utensils, a few cases of
canned goods, and clothes hanging in a row.

"I'm not fixed up very well yet," he apologized; "I've been too busy at
the saloon to waste time on living quarters. But it's comfortable
enough for an old roadster like me, for I've bruised around the
frontier so long that I've learned there's only three things necessary
to a man's comfort--warm clothes, a full stomach, and a dry place to
sleep. All the rest that goes to make a man content he has inside him,
and I'm not the kind to be satisfied, no matter where I am or what I
have. I never was that kind, so I just don't make the attempt."

He was talking to give her le