They were an education to Phillips; he acknowledged that he had gravely misjudged them, and he began to suspect that they had taught him something of charity.

As for Laure, he knew her very well by now and she knew him—­even better.  This knowledge had come to them not without cost—­wisdom is never cheap—­but precisely what each of them had paid or was destined to pay for their better understanding of each other they had not the slightest idea.  One thing the girl by this time had made sure of, viz., when Pierce was his natural self he felt her appeal only faintly.  On the other hand, the moment he was not his natural self, the moment his pitch was raised, he saw allurements in her, and at such times they met on common ground.  She made the most of this fact.

Dawson City burst into view of the party without warning, and no El Dorado could have looked more promising.  Hounding a bend of the river, they beheld a city of logs and canvas sprawled between the stream and a curving mountain-side.  The day was still and clear, hence vertical pencil-markings of blue smoke hung over the roofs; against the white background squat dwellings stood out distinctly, like diminutive dolls’ houses.  Upon closer approach the river shore was seen to be lined with scows and rowboats; a stern-wheeled river steamer lay moored abreast of the town.  Above it a valley broke through from the north, out of which poured a flood of clear, dark water.  It was the valley of the Klondike, magic word.

The journey was ended.  Best’s boats were unloaded, his men had been paid off, and now his troupe had scattered, seeking lodgings.  As in a dream Pierce Phillips joined the drifting current of humanity that flowed through the long front streets and eddied about the entrances of amusement places.  He asked himself if he were indeed awake, if, after all, this was his Ultima Thule?  Already the labor, the hardship, the adventure of the trip seemed imaginary; even the town itself was unreal.  Dawson was both a disappointment and a satisfaction to Pierce.  It was not what he had expected and it by no means filled the splendid picture he had painted in his fancy.  Crude, raw, unfinished, small, it was little more than Dyea magnified.  But in enterprise it was tremendous; hence it pleased and it thrilled the youth.  He breathed its breath, he drank the wine of its intoxication, he walked upon air with his head in the clouds.

Pierce longed for some one to whom he could confide his feeling of triumph, but nowhere did he recognize a face.  Finally he strolled into one of the larger saloons and gambling-houses, and was contentedly eying the scene when he felt a gaze fixed upon him.  He turned his head, opened his lips to speak, then stiffened in his tracks.  He could not credit his senses, for there, lounging at ease against the bar, his face distorted into an evil grin, stood Joe McCaskey!

Pierce blinked; he found that his jaw had dropped in amazement.  McCaskey enjoyed the sensation he had created; he leered at his former camp-mate, and in his expression was a hint of that same venom he had displayed when he had run the gauntlet at Sheep Camp after his flogging, He broke the spell of Pierce’s amazement and proved himself to be indeed a reality by uttering a greeting.