Phillips’ eyes were dancing.  “I’ll eat it up!” he cried, breathlessly.

“Good!  I think you’ll do.  Wait for me at the hotel.”  With a brisk nod she was off, leaving him in a perfect whirl of emotions.

Her man!  She had called him that.  “Fast work, long hours, long chances”; an impossible task!  What happy impulse had sped him to town this morning?  Ten minutes was the narrow margin by which he had won his opportunity, and now the door to the North had opened at a woman’s touch.  Inside lay—­everything!  She thought he’d do?  Why, she must know he’d do.  She must know he’d give up his life for her!

He pinched himself to ascertain if he were dreaming.

The Northern Hotel was less than three-quarters built, but within an hour after it had changed ownership it was in process of demolition.  The Countess Courteau was indeed a “lightning striker”; while Phillips went through the streets offering double wages to men who could wield hammer and saw, and the possibility of transportation clear to Dawson for those who could handle an oar, she called off the building crew and set them to new tasks, then she cleared the house of its guests.  Rooms were invaded with peremptory orders to vacate; the steady help was put to undoing what they had already done, and soon the premises were in tumult.  Such rooms as had been completed were dismantled even while the protesting occupants were yet gathering their belongings together, Beds were knocked down, bedding was moved out; windows, door-knobs, hinges, fixtures were removed; dishes, lamps, mirrors, glassware were assembled for packing.

Through all this din and clatter the Countess Courteau passed, spurring the wreckers on to speed.  Yielding to Phillips’ knowledge of transportation problems and limitations, she put him in general charge, and before he realized it he found that he was in reality her first lieutenant.

Toward evening a ship arrived and began to belch forth freight and passengers, whereupon there ensued a rush to find shelter.

Pierce was engaged in dismantling the office fixtures when a stranger entered and accosted him with the inquiry: 

“Got any rooms?”

“No, sir.  We’re moving this hotel bodily to Dawson.”

The new-comer surveyed the littered premises with some curiosity.  He was a tall, gray-haired man, with a long, impassive face of peculiar ashen color.  He had lost his left hand somewhere above the wrist and in place of it wore a metal hook.  With this he gestured stiffly in the direction of a girl who had followed him into the building.

“She’s got to have a bed,” he declared.  “I can get along somehow till my stuff is landed to-morrow.”

“I’m sorry,” Pierce told him, “but the beds are all down and the windows are out.  I’m afraid nobody could get much sleep here, for we’ll be at work all night.”

“Any other hotels?”

“Some bunk-houses.  But they’re pretty full.”