The new-made millionaire was in his office; Folsom walked in unannounced.  He had expected his arrival to create a scene, and he was not disappointed.  But Guth’s actions were strange, they left the new arrival dazed, for the little man fell upon him with what appeared to be exuberant manifestations of joy.

“Mr. Folsom!” he cried.  “You have come!  You got my letters, eh?  Well, I wrote you everywhere, but I was in despair, for I thought you must be dead.  Nobody knew what had become of you.”

“I got your message in Fairbanks.”

“You heard about the Lulu, eh?  Gott!  She’s a dandy.”

“Yes.  I can hardly believe it.  So, you’re rich.  Well, I congratulate you, and now I can use that hundred.”

Guth chuckled.  “Ha!  You will have your joke, eh?  But the Lulu is no joke.  Come, we will go to the bank; I want them to tell you how much she has yielded.  You’ll blame me for leasing her, but how was I to know what she was?”

“I—­Why should I blame—­” Folsom stared at the speaker.  “It’s none of my business what the Lulu has yielded.  In fact, I’ll sleep better if I don’t know.”

Little Guth paused and his mouth opened.  After a moment he inquired, curiously:  “Don’t you understand?” There was another pause, then he said, quietly, “I’m a man of my word.”

Folsom suddenly saw black, the room began to spin, he passed his hand across his eyes.  “Wait!  Let’s get this straight,” he whispered.

“It is all very simple,” Guth told him.  “We are equal partners in the Lulu—­we have been, ever since the day my store burned.  It was a little thing you said to me then, but the way you said it, the fact that you didn’t blame me, gave me new heart.  Did you think I’d renig?” When Folsom found no answer the other nodded slowly.  “I see.  You probably said, ‘That Guth is a Jew and he’ll do me up if he can.’  Well, I am a Jew, yes, and I am proud of it; but I am an honest man, too, like you.”

Folsom turned to the wall and hid his face in the crook of his arm, but with his other hand he groped for that of the Hebrew.

The story of the Lulu is history now; in all the north that mine is famous, for it made half a dozen fortunes.  In a daze, half doubting the reality of things, Folsom watched a golden stream pour into his lap.  All that winter and the next summer the Lulu yielded wondrously, but one of the partners was not happy, his thoughts being ever of the woman who had left him.  Prosperity gave him courage, however, and when he discovered that Lois had not remarried he determined to press his luck as a gambler should.

When the second season’s sluicing was over and the ground had frozen he went outside.

The day after he sailed Lois arrived in Nome, on the last boat.  She was older, graver; she had heard of the Lulu, but it was not that which had brought her back.  She had returned in spite of the Lulu to solve an aching mystery and to learn the why of things.  Her husband’s riches—­she still considered him her husband—­merely made the task more trying.