Annabel smiled.  “He thinks by mid-summer he can take me right into the interior, in that cranky red car.  And I don’t know but what I am ready to risk it; there are places I’d like to see—­where he was caught his first winter in a blizzard, and where he picked up the nuggets for my necklace.  You remember it—­don’t you?—­Mrs. Daniels.  I wore it that night in Seattle we went to hear Carmen.”

“I certainly do remember.  It was the most wonderful thing in the theater that night, and fit for an empress.”  Involuntarily Geraldine glanced down at her own solitary jewel.  It flashed a lovely blue light as she moved her hand.

Annabel followed the glance.  “Your ring is a beauty,” she said.  “Not many young men, just starting in business for themselves, would have thought they could afford a diamond like that.”

Geraldine laughed, flushing a little.  “It seems the finest in the world to me,” she replied almost shyly.  “And it ought to show higher light and color than any other; the way it was bought was so splendid.”

“Do you mean the way the money was earned to buy it?” inquired Annabel.

Geraldine nodded.  “It was the price, exactly, of his first magazine story.  Perhaps you read it.  It was published in the March issue of Sampson’s, and the editors liked it so well they asked to see more of his work.”

Jimmie looked at his wife in mingled protest and surprise.  He had believed she, as well as himself, had wished to have that story quickly forgotten.  “It is an Indian story,” she pursued; “about a poor little papoose that was accidentally killed.  It was a personal experience of Mr. Tisdale’s.”

Mrs. Banks had not read it, but the prospector pushed aside his sherbet glass and, laying his arms on the table, leaned towards Geraldine.  “Was that papoose cached under a log?” he asked softly.  “And was its mother berrying with a bunch of squaws up the ridge?”

“Yes,” smiled Geraldine.  “I see you have read it.”

“No, but I heard a couple of men size it up aboard the train coming from Scenic Hot Springs.  And once,” he went on with gathering tenseness, “clear up the Tanana, I heard Dave and Hollis talking it over.  My, yes, it seems like I can see them now; they was the huskiest, cleanest-cut, openest-faced team that ever mushed a trail.  It was one of those nights when the stars come close and friendly, and the camp-fire blazes and crackles straight to heaven and sets a man thinking; and Tisdale started it by saying if he could cut one record out of his past he guessed the rest could bear daylight.  Then Dave told him he was ready to stand by that one, too.  And Hollis said it was knowing that had taken the edge off, but it hadn’t put the breath back into that papoose.  Of course he never suspicioned for a minute the kid was in the road when he jumped that log, and the heart went out of him when he picked it up and saw what he was responsible for.  They