that they wance existed.  Ye may find nuggets in the Klondike, but niver good whiskey.  ’Tis likewise me intintion to have wan drink iv the rate stuff before I die.  Afther that ’tis me sworn resolve to return to the superveeshion iv me Klondike properties.  Indade, and I’m an Eldorado king; an’ if ye’ll be wantin’ the lind iv a tidy bit, it’s meself that’ll loan it ye.”

“The same old, old Matt, who never grows old,” Frona laughed.

“An’ it’s yerself is the thrue Welse, for all yer prize-fighter’s muscles an’ yer philosopher’s brains.  But let’s wander inside on the heels of Louis an’ Swiftwater.  Andy’s still tindin’ store, I’m told, an’ we’ll see if I still linger in the pages iv his mimory.”

“And I, also.”  Frona seized him by the hand.  It was a bad habit she had of seizing the hands of those she loved.  “It’s ten years since I went away.”

The Irishman forged his way through the crowd like a pile-driver, and Frona followed easily in the lee of his bulk.  The tenderfeet watched them reverently, for to them they were as Northland divinities.  The buzz of conversation rose again.

“Who’s the girl?” somebody asked.  And just as Frona passed inside the door she caught the opening of the answer:  “Jacob Welse’s daughter.  Never heard of Jacob Welse?  Where have you been keeping yourself?”

CHAPTER II

She came out of the wood of glistening birch, and with the first fires of the sun blazoning her unbound hair raced lightly across the dew-dripping meadow.  The earth was fat with excessive moisture and soft to her feet, while the dank vegetation slapped against her knees and cast off flashing sprays of liquid diamonds.  The flush of the morning was in her cheek, and its fire in her eyes, and she was aglow with youth and love.  For she had nursed at the breast of nature,—­in forfeit of a mother,—­and she loved the old trees and the creeping green things with a passionate love; and the dim murmur of growing life was a gladness to her ears, and the damp earth-smells were sweet to her nostrils.

Where the upper-reach of the meadow vanished in a dark and narrow forest aisle, amid clean-stemmed dandelions and color-bursting buttercups, she came upon a bunch of great Alaskan violets.  Throwing herself at full length, she buried her face in the fragrant coolness, and with her hands drew the purple heads in circling splendor about her own.  And she was not ashamed.  She had wandered away amid the complexities and smirch and withering heats of the great world, and she had returned, simple, and clean, and wholesome.  And she was glad of it, as she lay there, slipping back to the old days, when the universe began and ended at the sky-line, and when she journeyed over the Pass to behold the Abyss.