husband mastered the wealth of frozen pay streaks, and she was tired.  She rested against his great breast like a slender flower against a wall, replying lazily to Malemute Kid’s good-natured banter, and stirring Prince’s blood strangely with an occasional sweep of her deep, dark eyes.  For Prince was a man, and healthy, and had seen few women in many months.  And she was older than he, and an Indian besides.  But she was different from all native wives he had met:  she had traveled—­had been in his country among others, he gathered from the conversation; and she knew most of the things the women of his own race knew, and much more that it was not in the nature of things for them to know.  She could make a meal of sun-dried fish or a bed in the snow; yet she teased them with tantalizing details of many-course dinners, and caused strange internal dissensions to arise at the mention of various quondam dishes which they had well-nigh forgotten.  She knew the ways of the moose, the bear, and the little blue fox, and of the wild amphibians of the Northern seas; she was skilled in the lore of the woods, and the streams, and the tale writ by man and bird and beast upon the delicate snow crust was to her an open book; yet Prince caught the appreciative twinkle in her eye as she read the Rules of the Camp.  These rules had been fathered by the Unquenchable Bettles at a time when his blood ran high, and were remarkable for the terse simplicity of their humor.

Prince always turned them to the wall before the arrival of ladies; but who could suspect that this native wife—­Well, it was too late now.

This, then, was the wife of Axel Gunderson, a woman whose name and fame had traveled with her husband’s, hand in hand, through all the Northland.  At table, Malemute Kid baited her with the assurance of an old friend, and Prince shook off the shyness of first acquaintance and joined in.  But she held her own in the unequal contest, while her husband, slower in wit, ventured naught but applause.  And he was very proud of her; his every look and action revealed the magnitude of the place she occupied in his life.  He of the Otter Skins ate in silence, forgotten in the merry battle; and long ere the others were done he pushed back from the table and went out among the dogs.  Yet all too soon his fellow travelers drew on their mittens and parkas and followed him.

There had been no snow for many days, and the sleds slipped along the hardpacked Yukon trail as easily as if it had been glare ice.  Ulysses led the first sled; with the second came Prince and Axel Gunderson’s wife; while Malemute Kid and the yellow-haired giant brought up the third.

‘It’s only a hunch, Kid,’ he said, ’but I think it’s straight.  He’s never been there, but he tells a good story, and shows a map I heard of when I was in the Kootenay country years ago.  I’d like to have you go along; but he’s a strange one, and swore point-blank to throw it up if anyone was brought in.  But when I come back you’ll get first tip, and I’ll stake you next to me, and give you a half share in the town site besides.’  ‘No! no!’ he cried, as the other strove to interrupt.  ’I’m running this, and before I’m done it’ll need two heads.