It was evening. Brent and Snowdrift had climbed from the little trail camp at the edge of the timber line, to the very summit of the great Bonnet Plume Pa.s.s to watch the sun sink to rest behind the high-flung peaks of the mighty Alaskan ranges.

"Oh, isn't it grand! And wonderful!" cried the girl as her eyes swept the vast panorama of glistening white mountains. "How small and insignificant I feel! And how stern, and rugged, and hard it all looks."

"Yes, darling," whispered Brent, as his arm stole about her waist, "It is stern, and rugged, and hard. But it is clean, and honest, and grand.

It is the world as G.o.d made it."

"I have never been in the mountains before," said the girl, "I have seen them from the Mackenzie, but they were so far away they never seemed real. We have always hunted upon the barrens. Tell me, is it all like this? And where is the Yukon?"

Brent smiled at her awe of the vastness: "Pretty much all like this," he answered. "Alaska is a land of mountains. Of course there are wide valleys, and mighty rivers, and along the rivers are the towns and the mining camps."

"I have never seen a town," breathed the girl, "What will we do when we get there?"

"We will go straight to the Reeves," he answered, with a glad smile.

"Reeves is the man who staked me for the trip into the barrens, and his wife is an old, old friend of mine. We were born and grew up in the same town, and we will go straight to them."

"I wonder whether she will like me? I have known no white women except Sister Mercedes."

"Darling, she will love you!" cried Brent, "Everyone will love you! And we will be married in their house."

"But, what will he think when you tell him you have not made a strike?"

Brent laughed: "He will be the first to see that I have made a strike, dear--the richest strike in all the North."

"And you didn't tell me!" cried the girl, "Tell me about it, now! Was it on the Coppermine?"

"Yes, it was on the Coppermine. I made the great strike, one evening in the moonlight--when the dearest girl in the world told me she loved me."

Snowdrift raised her wondrous dark eyes to his: "Isn't it wonderful to love as we love?" she whispered, "To be all the world to each other? I do not care if we never make a strike. All I want is to be with you always. And if we do not make a strike we will live in our tepee and snare rabbits, and hunt, and be happy, always."

Brent covered the upturned face with kisses: "I guess we can manage something better than a tepee," he smiled. "I've got more than half of Reeves' dust left, and I've been thinking the matter over. The fact is, I don't think much of that Coppermine country for gold. I reckon we'll get a house and settle down in Dawson for a while, and I'll take the job Reeves offered me, and work till I get him paid off, and Camillo Bill, and enough ahead for a grub-stake, and then we'll see what's to be done.

We'll have lots of good times, too. There's the Reeves' and--and----"

Brent paused, and the girl smiled, "What's the matter? Can't you think of any more?"

"Well, to tell the truth, I don't know any others who--that is, married folks, our kind, you know. The men I knew best are all single men. But, lots of people have come in with the dredge companies. The Reeves will know them."

"There is that girl you called Kitty," suggested Snowdrift.

"Yes--" answered Brent, a little awkwardly, "That's so. But, she's--a little different."

"But I will like her, I am sure, because she nursed you when you were sick. I know what you mean!" she exclaimed abruptly, and Brent saw that the dark eyes flashed, "You mean that people point at her the finger of scorn--as they would have pointed at me, had I been--as I thought I was.

But it is all wrong, and I will not do that! And I will hate those who do! And I will tell them so!" she stamped her moccasined foot in anger, and the man laughed:

"My goodness!" he exclaimed feigning alarm, "I can see from here where I better get home to meals on time, and not forget to put the cat out."

"Now, you are making fun of me," she pouted, "But it is wrong, and you know it is, and maybe the very ones who do the pointing are worse in their hearts than she is."

"You said it!" cried Brent, "The ones that look down upon the frailties of others, are the very ones who need watching themselves. And that is a good thing to remember in picking out friends. And, darling, you can go as far as you like with Kitty. I'm for you. She's got a big heart, and there's a lot more to her than there is to most of 'em. But, come, it's dark, and we must be getting back to camp. See the little fire down on the edge of the timber line. It looks a thousand miles away."

And as they picked their way, side by side, down the long slope, Brent was conscious that with the growing tenderness that each day's a.s.sociation with his wonder woman engendered, there was also a growing respect for her outlook upon life. Her years in the open had developed a sense of perception that was keen to separate the dross from the pure gold of human intent. "She's a great girl," he breathed, as he glanced at her profile, half hidden in the starlight, "She deserves the best that's in a man--and she'll get it!"

CHAPTER XXIII

IN THE TOILS

Late one afternoon, a dog sled, with Joe Pete in the lead, and Brent and Snowdrift following swung rapidly down the Klondike River. A few miles from Dawson, the outfit overtook a man walking leisurely toward town, a rifle swung over his shoulder. Recognizing him as one Zinn, a former hanger-on at Cuter Malone's, Brent called a greeting.

"d.a.m.ned if it ain't Ace-In-The-Hole!" cried the man, in well simulated surprise. "They'll be rollin' 'em high in Dawson tonight!"

Brent laughed, and hurried on. And behind him upon the trail Zinn quickened his pace.

At the outskirts of town the three removed their snowshoes and, ordering Joe Pete to take the outfit to his own shack, Brent and Snowdrift hurried toward the Reeves'.

As they pa.s.sed up the street Brent noticed that the dark eyes of the girl were busily drinking in the details of the rows upon rows of low frame houses. "At last you are in Dawson," he said, including with a sweep of the arm the mushroom city that had sprung up in the shadow of Moosehide Mountain, "Does it look like you expected it would? Are you going to like it?"

The girl smiled at the eagerness in his voice: "Yes, dear, I shall love it, because it will be our home. It isn't quite as I expected it to look. The houses all placed side by side, with the streets running between are as I thought they would be, but the houses themselves are different. They are not of logs, or of the thin iron like the warehouse of the new trading company on the Mackenzie, and they are not made of bricks and stones and very tall like the pictures of cities in the books."

Brent laughed: "No, Dawson is just half way between. Since the sawmills came the town has rapidly outgrown the log cabin stage, although there are still plenty of them here, but it has not yet risen to the dignity of brick and stone."

"But the houses of brick and stone will come!" cried the girl, enthusiastically, "And take the place of the houses of wood, and we shall be here to see the building of another great city."

Brent shook his head: "I don't know," he replied, doubtfully, "It all depends on the gravel. I wouldn't care to do much speculating in Dawson real estate right now. The time for that has pa.s.sed. The next two or three years will tell the story. If I were to do any predicting, I'd say that instead of the birth of a great city, we are going to witness the lingering death of an overgrown town." He paused and pointed to a small cabin of logs that stood deserted, half buried in snow. "Do you see that shack over there? That's mine. It don't look like much, now. But, I gave five thousand in dust for it when I made my first strike."

The girl's eyes sparkled as she viewed the dejected looking building, "And that will be our home!" she cried.

"Not by a long shot, it won't!" laughed Brent, "We'll do better than that. I never want to see the inside of the place again! Yes, I do--just once. I want to go there and get a book--the book that lured me to the Coppermine--the book in which is written the name of Murdo MacFarlane.

We will always keep that book, darling. And some day we will get it bound in leather and gold."

Before a little white-painted house that stood back from the street, the man paused: "The Reeves' live here," he announced, and as he turned into the neatly shovelled path that led to the door, he reached down and pressed the girl's hand rea.s.suringly: "Mrs. Reeves is an old, old friend," he whispered, "She will be a sister to you."

As Brent led the way along the narrow path his eyes rested upon the slope of snow-buried earth that pitched sharply against the base of the walls of the house, "Hardest work I ever did," he grinned, "Hope the floor kept warm."

As he waited the answer to his knock upon the door, he noticed casually that Zinn sauntered past and turned abruptly into the street that led straight to Cuter Malone's. The next instant the door was opened and Reba Reeves stood framed in the doorway. Brent saw that in the gloom of early evening she did not recognize him. "Is Mr. Reeves home?" he asked.

"Yes, won't you step in? answered the woman, standing aside.

"Thank you. I think we will."

Something in the man's tone caused the woman to step quickly forward and peer sharply into his face: "Carter Brent!" she cried, and the next instant the man's hands were in both of hers, and she was pulling him into the room. Like a flash Brent remembered that other time she had called his name in a tone of intense surprise, and that there had been tears in her eyes then, even as there were tears in her eyes now, but this time they were tears of gladness. And then, from another room came Reeves, and a pair of firm hands were laid upon his shoulders and he was spun around to meet the gaze of the searching grey eyes that stared into his own. Brent laughed happily as he noted the start of surprise that accompanied Reeves' words: "Good Lord! What a change!" A hand slipped from his shoulder and grasped his own.

A moment later, Brent freed the hand, and as Mrs. Reeves lighted the lamp, turned and drew Snowdrift toward him. "And now I want you to meet--Miss Margot MacFarlane. Within a very few hours she is going to become Mrs. Carter Brent. You see," he added turning to Reba Reeves, "I brought her straight to you. The hotel isn't----"