“Oh!” The woman nodded; her teeth gleamed in a smile that was not at all pleasant.  “I heard about the shooting this morning; I meant to ask you about it, but I was thinking of other things.”  She measured the burly frame of the young man at her side and the vindictiveness died out of her expression.  Phillips was good to look at; he stood a full six feet in height, his close-cropped hair displayed a shapely head, and his features were well molded.  He was a handsome, open lad, the Countess acknowledged.  Aloud she said:  “I dare say every woman loves to have a man fight for her.  I do my own fighting, usually, but it’s nice to have a champion.”  Her gaze wandered back to the hotel, then up the pine-flanked valley toward the Chilkoot; her abstraction returned; she appeared to weigh some intricate mathematical calculation.

With his hands in his pockets the hotel-keeper came idling down to the water’s edge and, approaching his departing guest, said, carelessly: 

“I’ve been thinking it over, ma’am.  There isn’t room for two of us here.  I might make it seventeen thousand five hundred, if—­”

“Fifteen!  No more.”

There came a signal from the steamer in the offing; the Countess extended her hand to Pierce.

“Good-by!  If you’re still here three weeks from now you may be able to help me.”  Then she joined the procession up the gang-plank.

But the hotel-keeper halted her.  “Fifteen is a go!” he said, angrily.

The Countess Courteau stepped back out of the line.  “Very well.  Make out the bill of sale.  I’ll meet you at Healy & Wilson’s in ten minutes.”

A moment later she smiled at Pierce and heaved a sigh of relief.

“Well, I brought him to time, didn’t I?  I’d never have gone aboard.  I’d have paid him twenty-five thousand dollars, as a matter of fact, but he hadn’t sense enough to see it.  I knew I had him when he followed me down here.”

“What have you bought?”

“That hotel yonder—­all but the lumber.”

“All but the lumber!  Why, there isn’t much else!” Pierce was more than a little astonished.

“Oh yes, there is!  Dishes, hardware, glass, beds, bedding, windows, fixtures—­everything inside the building, that’s what I bought.  That’s all I wanted.  I’ll have the place wrecked and the stuff packed up and on men’s backs in two days.  It cost—­I don’t know what it cost, and I don’t care.  The fellow was perfectly right, though; I haven’t time to get to Seattle and back again.  Know any men who want work?”

“I want it.”

“Know any others?” Pierce shook his head.  “Find some—­the more the better.  Carpenters first, if there are any.”  The speaker was all business now.  “You’re working for me from this minute, understand?  Treat me right and I’ll treat you right.  I’ll take you through to Dawson.  I want carpenters, packers, boatmen; they must work fast.  Long hours, long chances, big pay, that’s what it will mean.  That outfit must be in Dawson ahead of the ice.  Such a thing has never been done; it can’t be done!  But I’ll do it!  Do you want to tackle the job?”