“I can’t go to bed.  Please don’t leave me!  I’m too nervous.  I’ll go mad if you do.  The strain of the last week has been too much for me.  If I sleep I’ll see the faces of those men again.”

Dextry talked with his companion, then made a purchase which he laid at the lady’s feet.

“Here’s a pair of half-grown gum boots.  You put ’em on an’ come with us.  We’ll take your mind off of things complete.  An’ as fer sweet dreams, when you get back you’ll make the slumbers of the just seem as restless as a riot, or the antics of a mountain-goat which nimbly leaps from crag to crag, and—­well, that’s restless enough.  Come on!”

As the sun slanted up out of Behring Sea, they marched back towards the hills, their feet ankle-deep in the soft fresh moss, while the air tasted like a cool draught and a myriad of earthy odors rose up and encircled them.  Snipe and reed birds were noisy in the hollows and from the misty tundra lakes came the honking of brant.  After their weary weeks on shipboard, the dewy freshness livened them magically, cleansing from their memories the recent tragedy, so that the girl became herself again.

“Where are we going?” she asked, at the end of an hour, pausing for breath.

“Why, to the Midas, of course,” they said; and one of them vowed recklessly, as he drank in the beauty of her clear eyes and the grace of her slender, panting form, that he would gladly give his share of all its riches to undo what he had done one night on the Santa Maria.

CHAPTER V

WHEREIN A MAN APPEARS

In the lives of countries there are crises where, for a breath, destinies lie in the laps of the gods and are jumbled, heads or tails.  Thus are marked distinctive cycles like the seven ages of a man, and though, perhaps, they are too subtle to be perceived at the time, yet, having swung past the shadowy milestones, the epochs disclose themselves.

Such a period in the progress of the Far Northwest was the nineteenth day of July, although to those concerned in the building of this new empire the day appealed only as the date of the coming of the law.  All Nome gathered on the sands as lighters brought ashore Judge Stillman and his following.  It was held fitting that the Senator should be the ship to safeguard the dignity of the first court and to introduce Justice into this land of the wild.

The interest awakened by His Honor was augmented by the fact that he was met on the beach by a charming girl, who flung herself upon him with evident delight.

“That’s his niece,” said some one.  “She came up on the first boat--name’s Chester—­swell looker, eh?”

Another new-comer attracted even more notice than the limb of the law; a gigantic, well-groomed man, with keen, close-set eyes, and that indefinable easy movement and polished bearing that come from confidence, health, and travel.  Unlike the others, he did not dally on the beach nor display much interest in his surroundings; but, with purposeful frown strode through the press, up into the heart of the city.  His companion was Struve’s partner, Dunham, a middle-aged, pompous man.  They went directly to the offices of Dunham & Struve, where they found the white-haired junior partner.