“Long time Gow pretty near die.  Then he get well, but his head sick.  He don’t know nobody.  Don’t know his father, his mother, or anything.  Just like a little baby.  Just like that.  Then one day, quick, click! something snap, and his head get well all at once.  He know his father and mother, he remember Pisk-ku, he remember everything.  His father say John Borg go down river.  Then Gow go down river.  Spring-time, ice very bad.  He very much afraid, so many white men, and when he come to this place he travel by night.  Nobody see him ’tall, but he see everybody.  He like a cat, see in the dark.  Somehow, he come straight to John Borg’s cabin.  He do not know how this was, except that the work he had to do was good work.”

St. Vincent pressed Frona’s hand, but she shook her fingers clear and withdrew a step.

“He see Pisk-ku feed the dogs, and he have talk with her.  That night he come and she open the door.  Then you know that which was done.  St. Vincent do nothing, Borg kill Bella.  Gow kill Borg.  Borg kill Gow, for Gow die pretty quick.  Borg have strong arm.  Gow sick inside, all smashed up.  Gow no care; Pisk-ku dead.

“After that he go ’cross ice to the land.  I tell him all you people say it cannot be; no man can cross the ice at that time.  He laugh, and say that it is, and what is, must be.  Anyway, he have very hard time, but he get ’cross all right.  He very sick inside.  Bime-by he cannot walk; he crawl.  Long time he come to Stewart River.  Can go no more, so he lay down to die.  Two white men find him and bring him to this place.  He don’t care.  He die anyway.”

La Flitche finished abruptly, but nobody spoke.  Then he added, “I think Gow damn good man.”

Frona came up to Jacob Welse.  “Take me away, father,” she said.  “I am so tired.”

CHAPTER XXX

Next morning, Jacob Welse, for all of the Company and his millions in mines, chopped up the day’s supply of firewood, lighted a cigar, and went down the island in search of Baron Courbertin.  Frona finished the breakfast dishes, hung out the robes to air, and fed the dogs.  Then she took a worn Wordsworth from her clothes-bag, and, out by the bank, settled herself comfortably in a seat formed by two uprooted pines.  But she did no more than open the book; for her eyes strayed out and over the Yukon to the eddy below the bluffs, and the bend above, and the tail of the spit which lay in the midst of the river.  The rescue and the race were still fresh with her, though there were strange lapses, here and there, of which she remembered little.  The struggle by the fissure was immeasurable; she knew not how long it lasted; and the race down Split-up to Roubeau Island was a thing of which her reason convinced her, but of which she recollected nothing.