They clapped their applause.

“My only reward for venturing out and keeping you all waiting was my meeting with this ridiculous fellow.”  She shoved Corliss forward.  “Oh! you have not met!  Baron Courbertin, Mr. Corliss.  If you strike it rich, baron, I advise you to sell to Mr. Corliss.  He has the money-bags of Croesus, and will buy anything so long as the title is good.  And if you don’t strike, sell anyway.  He’s a professional philanthropist, you know.

“But would you believe it!” (addressing the general group) “this ridiculous fellow kindly offered to see me up the hill and gossip along the way—­gossip! though he refused point-blank to come in and watch the rehearsal.  But when he found there wasn’t to be any, he changed about like a weather-vane.  So here he is, claiming to have been away to Miller Creek; but between ourselves there is no telling what dark deeds—­”

“Dark deeds!  Look!” Frona broke in, pointing to the tip of an amber mouth-piece which projected from Vance’s outside breast-pocket.  “A pipe!  My congratulations.”

She held out her hand and he shook good-humoredly.

“All Del’s fault,” he laughed.  “When I go before the great white throne, it is he who shall stand forth and be responsible for that particular sin.”

“An improvement, nevertheless,” she argued.  “All that is wanting is a good round swear-word now and again.”

“Oh, I assure you I am not unlearned,” he retorted.  “No man can drive dogs else.  I can swear from hell to breakfast, by damn, and back again, if you will permit me, to the last link of perdition.  By the bones of Pharaoh and the blood of Judas, for instance, are fairly efficacious with a string of huskies; but the best of my dog-driving nomenclature, more’s the pity, women cannot stand.  I promise you, however, in spite of hell and high water—­”

“Oh!  Oh!” Mrs. Schoville screamed, thrusting her fingers into her ears.

“Madame,” Baron Courbertin spoke up gravely, “it is a fact, a lamentable fact, that the dogs of the north are responsible for more men’s souls than all other causes put together.  Is it not so?  I leave it to the gentlemen.”

Both Corliss and St. Vincent solemnly agreed, and proceeded to detonate the lady by swapping heart-rending and apposite dog tales.

St. Vincent and the baron remained behind to take lunch with the Gold Commissioner’s wife, leaving Frona and Corliss to go down the hill together.  Silently consenting, as though to prolong the descent, they swerved to the right, cutting transversely the myriad foot-paths and sled roads which led down into the town.  It was a mid-December day, clear and cold; and the hesitant high-noon sun, having laboriously dragged its pale orb up from behind the southern land-rim, balked at the great climb to the zenith, and began its shamefaced slide back beneath the earth.  Its oblique rays refracted from the floating frost particles till the air was filled with glittering jewel-dust—­resplendent, blazing, flashing light and fire, but cold as outer space.