somebody was singing.  Frona sprang from the stool and came forward, greeting him with both hands.  He had thought his sun-picture perfect, but this fire-picture, this young creature with the flush and warmth of ringing life, quite eclipsed it.  It was a whirling moment, as he held her two hands in his, one of those moments when an incomprehensible orgasm quickens the blood and dizzies the brain.  Though the first syllables came to him faintly, Mrs. Schoville’s voice brought him back to himself.

“Oh!” she cried.  “You know him!”

And Frona answered, “Yes, we met on the Dyea Trail; and those who meet on the Dyea Trail can never forget.”

“How romantic!”

The Gold Commissioner’s wife clapped her hands.  Though fat and forty, and phlegmatic of temperament, between exclamations and hand-clappings her waking existence was mostly explosive.  Her husband secretly averred that did God Himself deign to meet her face to face, she would smite together her chubby hands and cry out, “How romantic!”

“How did it happen?” she continued.  “He didn’t rescue you over a cliff, or that sort of thing, did he?  Do say that he did!  And you never said a word about it, Mr. Corliss.  Do tell me.  I’m just dying to know!”

“Oh, nothing like that,” he hastened to answer.  “Nothing much.  I, that is we—­”

He felt a sinking as Frona interrupted.  There was no telling what this remarkable girl might say.

“He gave me of his hospitality, that was all,” she said.  “And I can vouch for his fried potatoes; while for his coffee, it is excellent—­when one is very hungry.”

“Ingrate!” he managed to articulate, and thereby to gain a smile, ere he was introduced to a cleanly built lieutenant of the Mounted Police, who stood by the fireplace discussing the grub proposition with a dapper little man very much out of place in a white shirt and stiff collar.

Thanks to the particular niche in society into which he happened to be born, Corliss drifted about easily from group to group, and was much envied therefore by Del Bishop, who sat stiffly in the first chair he had dropped into, and who was waiting patiently for the first person to take leave that he might know how to compass the manoeuvre.  In his mind’s eye he had figured most of it out, knew just how many steps required to carry him to the door, was certain he would have to say good-by to Frona, but did not know whether or not he was supposed to shake hands all around.  He had just dropped in to see Frona and say “Howdee,” as he expressed it, and had unwittingly found himself in company.