“And this is midnight!” exclaimed Helen, breathlessly.  “Do they ever rest?”

“There isn’t time—­this is a gold stampede.  You haven’t caught the spirit of it yet.”  They climbed the stairs in a huge, iron-sheeted building to the office of Dunham

“Anybody else here besides you?” asked her escort of the lawyer.

“No.  I’m runnin’ the law business unassisted.  Don’t need any help.  Dunham’s in Wash’n’ton, D. C., the lan’ of the home, the free of the brave.  What can I do for you?”

He made to cross the threshold hospitably, but tripped, plunged forward, and would have rolled down the stairs had not Glenister gathered him up and borne him back into the office, where he tossed him upon a bed in a rear room.

“Now what, Miss Chester?” asked the young man, returning.

“Isn’t that dreadful?” she shuddered.  “Oh, and I must see him to-night!” She stamped impatiently.  “I must see him alone.”

“No, you mustn’t,” said Glenister, with equal decision.  “In the first place, he wouldn’t know what you were talking about, and in the second place—­I know Struve.  He’s too drunk to talk business and too sober to—­well, to see you alone.”

“But I must see him,” she insisted.  “It’s what brought me here.  You don’t understand.”

“I understand more than he could.  He’s in no condition to act on any important matter.  You come around to-morrow when he’s sober.”

“It means so much,” breathed the girl.  “The beast!”

Glenister noted that she had not wrung her hands nor even hinted at tears, though plainly her disappointment and anxiety were consuming her.

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to wait, but I don’t know where to go—­ some hotel, I suppose.”

“There aren’t any.  They’re building two, but to-night you couldn’t hire a room in Nome for money.  I was about to say ‘love or money.’  Have you no other friends here—­no women?  Then you must let me find a place for you.  I have a friend whose wife will take you in.”

She rebelled at this.  Was she never to have done with this man’s favors?  She thought of returning to the ship, but dismissed that.  She undertook to decline his aid, but he was half-way down the stairs and paid no attention to her beginning—­so she followed him.

It was then that Helen Chester witnessed her first tragedy of the frontier, and through it came to know better the man whom she disliked and with whom she had been thrown so fatefully.  Already she had thrilled at the spell of this country, but she had not learned that strength and license carry blood and violence as corollaries.

Emerging from the doorway at the foot of the stairs, they drifted slowly along the walk, watching the crowd.  Besides the universal tension, there were laughter and hope and exhilaration in the faces.  The enthusiasm of this boyish multitude warmed one.  The girl wished to get into this spirit—­to be one of them.  Then suddenly from the babble at their elbows came a discordant note, not long nor loud, only a few words, penetrating and harsh with the metallic quality lent by passion.