prices than ever before in the annals of the country.  And, as it chanced, this scramble for dogs turned the public eye still more searchingly upon Joy Molineau.  Not only was she the cause of it all, but she possessed the finest sled-dog from Chilkoot to Bering Sea.  As wheel or leader, Wolf Fang had no equal.  The man whose sled he led down the last stretch was bound to win.  There could be no doubt of it.  But the community had an innate sense of the fitness of things, and not once was Joy vexed by overtures for his use.  And the factions drew consolation from the fact that if one man did not profit by him, neither should the other.

However, since man, in the individual or in the aggregate, has been so fashioned that he goes through life blissfully obtuse to the deeper subtleties of his womankind, so the men of Forty Mile failed to divine the inner deviltry of Joy Molineau.  They confessed, afterward, that they had failed to appreciate this dark-eyed daughter of the aurora, whose father had traded furs in the country before ever they dreamed of invading it, and who had herself first opened eyes on the scintillant northern lights.  Nay, accident of birth had not rendered her less the woman, nor had it limited her woman’s understanding of men.  They knew she played with them, but they did not know the wisdom of her play, its deepness and its deftness.  They failed to see more than the exposed card, so that to the very last Forty Mile was in a state of pleasant obfuscation, and it was not until she cast her final trump that it came to reckon up the score.

Early in the week the camp turned out to start Jack Harrington and Louis Savoy on their way.  They had taken a shrewd margin of time, for it was their wish to arrive at Olaf Nelson’s claim some days previous to the expiration of its immunity, that they might rest themselves, and their dogs be fresh for the first relay.  On the way up they found the men of Dawson already stationing spare dog teams along the trail, and it was manifest that little expense had been spared in view of the millions at stake.

A couple of days after the departure of their champions, Forty Mile began sending up their relays,—­first to the seventy-five station, then to the fifty, and last to the twenty-five.  The teams for the last stretch were magnificent, and so equally matched that the camp discussed their relative merits for a full hour at fifty below, before they were permitted to pull out.  At the last moment Joy Molineau dashed in among them on her sled.  She drew Lon McFane, who had charge of Harrington’s team, to one side, and hardly had the first words left her lips when it was noticed that his lower jaw dropped with a celerity and emphasis suggestive of great things.  He unhitched Wolf Fang from her sled, put him at the head of Harrington’s team, and mushed the string of animals into the Yukon trail.

“Poor Louis Savoy!” men said; but Joy Molineau flashed her black eyes defiantly and drove back to her father’s cabin.