on the ground.  But that afternoon her big St. Bernard, valiantly defending her front stoop, was downed by a foraging party of trail-starved Malemutes.  He was buried beneath the hirsute mass for about thirty seconds, when rescued by a couple of axes and as many stout men.  Had he remained down two minutes, the chances were large that he would have been roughly apportioned and carried away in the respective bellies of the attacking party; but as it was, it was a mere case of neat and expeditious mangling.  Sitka Charley came to repair the damages, especially a right fore-paw which had inadvertently been left a fraction of a second too long in some other dog’s mouth.  As he put on his mittens to go, the talk turned upon Flossie and in natural sequence passed on to the—­“er horrid woman.”  Sitka Charley remarked incidentally that she intended jumping out down river that night with Floyd Vanderlip, and further ventured the information that accidents were very likely at that time of year.

So Mrs. Eppingwell’s thoughts of Freda were unkinder than ever.  She wrote a note, addressed it to the man in question, and intrusted it to a messenger who lay in wait at the mouth of Bonanza Creek.  Another man, bearing a note from Freda, also waited at that strategic point.  So it happened that Floyd Vanderlip, riding his sled merrily down with the last daylight, received the notes together.  He tore Freda’s across.  No, he would not go to see her.  There were greater things afoot that night.  Besides, she was out of the running.  But Mrs. Eppingwell!  He would observe her last wish,—­or rather, the last wish it would be possible for him to observe,—­and meet her at the Governor’s ball to hear what she had to say.  From the tone of the writing it was evidently important; perhaps—­ He smiled fondly, but failed to shape the thought.  Confound it all, what a lucky fellow he was with the women any way!  Scattering her letter to the frost, he mushed the dogs into a swinging lope and headed for his cabin.  It was to be a masquerade, and he had to dig up the costume used at the Opera House a couple of months before.  Also, he had to shave and to eat.  Thus it was that he, alone of all interested, was unaware of Flossie’s proximity.

“Have them down to the water-hole off the hospital, at midnight, sharp.  Don’t fail me,” he said to Sitka Charley, who dropped in with the advice that only one dog was lacking to fill the bill, and that that one would be forthcoming in an hour or so.  “Here’s the sack.  There’s the scales.  Weigh out your own dust and don’t bother me.  I’ve got to get ready for the ball.”

Sitka Charley weighed out his pay and departed, carrying with him a letter to Loraine Lisznayi, the contents of which he correctly imagined to refer to a meeting at the water-hole of the hospital, at midnight, sharp.

IV