at did I
tell you? I knew where I was all the time." Then he went in, leaving
his partner to unhitch the team and care for it.

Friendships ripen and enmities deepen quickly on the trail, seeds of
discord sprout and flourish in the cold. Folsom's burst of temper had
served to inflame a mutual dislike, and as he and Harkness journeyed
northward that dislike deepened into something akin to hatred, for the
men shared the same bed, drank from the same pot, endured the same
exasperations. Nothing except their hope of mutual profit held
them together. In our careless search for cause and effect we are
accustomed to attribute important issues to important happenings,
amazing consequences to amazing deeds; as a matter of fact it is the
trivial action, the little thing, the thing unnoticed and forgotten
which bends our pathways and makes or breaks us.

Harkness was a hare-brained, irresponsible person, incapable of
steadiness in thought or action, too weak to cherish actual hatred,
too changeable to nurse a lasting grudge. It is with such frail
instruments that prankish fate delights to work, and, although he
never suspected it, the luxury of yielding to that sudden gust of
passion cost Folsom dear.

Arrived finally at the Kobuk the miner examined the properties covered
by his option, and impressed by the optimism of the men who had made
the gold discovery he paid Harkness the price agreed upon. The deal
completed, he sent the fellow back to Candle Creek, the nearest
post, for supplies. Folsom's mood had altogether changed by now, so,
strangling his last doubt of Lois, he wrote her as he had written at
Kougarok City, and intrusted the letter to his associate.

Harkness, promptly upon his arrival at Candle, got drunk. He stayed
drunk for three days, and it was not until he was well started on his
way back to the Kobuk that he discovered Folsom's letter still in his
pocket.

Now, to repeat, the man was not malicious, neither was he bad, but as
he debated whether he should back-track there came to him the memory
of his humiliation on the Imnachuck divide.

So! His brains were in his feet, eh? Folsom had strangled him until he
kicked, when, all the time, they had been on the right trail. Harkness
felt a flash of rage, like the flare of loose gunpowder, and in the
heat of it he tore the letter to atoms. It was a womanish, spiteful
thing to do, and he regretted it, but later when he greeted the
husband he lied circumstantially