Again, there were two sides to the social life of Dawson.  Up at the Barracks, at the Welse’s, and a few other places, all men of standing were welcomed and made comfortable by the womenkind of like standing.  There were teas, and dinners, and dances, and socials for charity, and the usual run of things; all of which, however, failed to wholly satisfy the men.  Down in the town there was a totally different though equally popular other side.  As the country was too young for club-life, the masculine portion of the community expressed its masculinity by herding together in the saloons,—­the ministers and missionaries being the only exceptions to this mode of expression.  Business appointments and deals were made and consummated in the saloons, enterprises projected, shop talked, the latest news discussed, and a general good fellowship maintained.  There all life rubbed shoulders, and kings and dog-drivers, old-timers and chechaquos, met on a common level.  And it so happened, probably because saw-mills and house-space were scarce, that the saloons accommodated the gambling tables and the polished dance-house floors.  And here, because he needs must bend to custom, Corliss’s adaptation went on rapidly.  And as Carthey, who appreciated him, soliloquized, “The best of it is he likes it damn well, by damn!”

But any adjustment must have its painful periods, and while Corliss’s general change went on smoothly, in the particular case of Frona it was different.  She had a code of her own, quite unlike that of the community, and perhaps believed woman might do things at which even the saloon-inhabiting males would be shocked.  And because of this, she and Corliss had their first disagreeable disagreement.

Frona loved to run with the dogs through the biting frost, cheeks tingling, blood bounding, body thrust forward, and limbs rising and falling ceaselessly to the pace.  And one November day, with the first cold snap on and the spirit thermometer frigidly marking sixty-five below, she got out the sled, harnessed her team of huskies, and flew down the river trail.  As soon as she cleared the town she was off and running.  And in such manner, running and riding by turns, she swept through the Indian village below the bluff’s, made an eight-mile circle up Moosehide Creek and back, crossed the river on the ice, and several hours later came flying up the west bank of the Yukon opposite the town.  She was aiming to tap and return by the trail for the wood-sleds which crossed thereabout, but a mile away from it she ran into the soft snow and brought the winded dogs to a walk.

Along the rim of the river and under the frown of the overhanging cliffs, she directed the path she was breaking.  Here and there she made detours to avoid the out-jutting talus, and at other times followed the ice in against the precipitous walls and hugged them closely around the abrupt bends.  And so, at the head of her huskies, she came suddenly upon a woman sitting in the snow and gazing across the river at smoke-canopied Dawson.  She had been crying, and this was sufficient to prevent Frona’s scrutiny from wandering farther.  A tear, turned to a globule of ice, rested on her cheek, and her eyes were dim and moist; there was an-expression of hopeless, fathomless woe.