“Perhaps I’ll see you at the next dance,” she suggested.

“Dance!” The word struck Pierce unpleasantly.

“Saturday night, at the Barracks.”

“I’d love to come,” he declared.

“Do.  They’re loads of fun.  All the nice people go.”

With a nod and a smile she was gone, leaving him to realize that he did not even know her name.  Well, that was of no moment; Dawson was a small place, and—­Saturday was not far off.  He had heard about those official parties at the Barracks and he made up his mind to secure an invitation sufficiently formal to permit him to attend the very next one.

His opportunity came that night when one of the younger Mounted Police officers paused to exchange greetings with him.  Lieutenant Rock was a familiar figure on the streets of Dawson and on the trails near by, a tall, upstanding Canadian with a record for unfailing good humor and relentless efficiency.  He nodded at Pierce’s casual reference to the coming dance at Headquarters.

“Great sport,” said he.  “It’s about the only chance we fellows have to play.”

When no invitation to share in the treat was forthcoming Pierce told of meeting a most attractive girl that afternoon, and, having obtained his hearer’s interest, he described the youthful goddess of the snows with more than necessary enthusiasm.  He became aware of a peculiar expression upon Rock’s face.

“Yes.  I know her well,” the latter said, quietly.  “D’you mean to say she invited you to the ball?”

“It wasn’t exactly an invitation—­”

“Oh!  I see.  Well”—­Rock shook his head positively—­“there’s nothing doing, old man.  It isn’t your kind of a party.  Understand?”

“I—­don’t understand,” Pierce confessed in genuine surprise.

The officer eyed him with a cool, disconcerting directness.  “We draw the lines pretty close—­have to in a camp like this.  No offense, I trust.”  With a smile and a careless wave of the hand he moved on, leaving Pierce to stare after him until he was swallowed up by the crowd in the gambling-room.

A blow in the face would not have amazed Pierce Phillips more, nor would it have more greatly angered him.  So, he was ostracized!  These men who treated him with such apparent good-fellowship really despised him; in their eyes he was a renegade; they considered him unfit to know their women.  It was incredible!

This was the first deliberate slight the young man had ever received.  His face burned, his pride withered under it; he would have bitten out his tongue rather than subject himself to such a rebuff.  Who was Rock?  How dared he?  Rock knew the girl, oh yes!  But he refused to mention her name—­as if that name would be sullied by his, Pierce’s, use of it.  That hurt most of all; that was the bitterest pill.  Society!  Caste!  On the Arctic Circle!  It was to laugh!