Leaving his party on the sand to wait for the putting ashore of the freight, he strolled up the beach toward the old trading-post.  He did not swagger, though he noticed that many of the be-revolvered individuals did.  A strapping, six-foot Indian passed him, carrying an unusually large pack.  Kit swung in behind, admiring the splendid calves of the man, and the grace and ease with which he moved along under his burden.  The Indian dropped his pack on the scales in front of the post, and Kit joined the group of admiring gold-rushers who surrounded him.  The pack weighed one hundred and twenty-five pounds, which fact was uttered back and forth in tones of awe.  It was going some, Kit decided, and he wondered if he could lift such a weight, much less walk off with it.

“Going to Lake Linderman with it, old man?” he asked.

The Indian, swelling with pride, grunted an affirmative.

“How much you make that one pack?”

“Fifty dollar.”

Here Kit slid out of the conversation.  A young woman, standing in the doorway, had caught his eye.  Unlike other women landing from the steamers, she was neither short-skirted nor bloomer-clad.  She was dressed as any woman travelling anywhere would be dressed.  What struck him was the justness of her being there, a feeling that somehow she belonged.  Moreover, she was young and pretty.  The bright beauty and colour of her oval face held him, and he looked over-long—­looked till she resented, and her own eyes, long-lashed and dark, met his in cool survey.

From his face they travelled in evident amusement down to the big revolver at his thigh.  Then her eyes came back to his, and in them was amused contempt.  It struck him like a blow.  She turned to the man beside her and indicated Kit.  The man glanced him over with the same amused contempt.

“Chechako,” the girl said.

The man, who looked like a tramp in his cheap overalls and dilapidated woollen jacket, grinned dryly, and Kit felt withered, though he knew not why.  But anyway she was an unusually pretty girl, he decided, as the two moved off.  He noted the way of her walk, and recorded the judgment that he would recognize it over the lapse of a thousand years.

“Did you see that man with the girl?” Kit’s neighbor asked him excitedly.  “Know who he is?”

Kit shook his head.

“Cariboo Charley.  He was just pointed out to me.  He struck it big on Klondike.  Old-timer.  Been on the Yukon a dozen years.  He’s just come out.”

“What’s ‘chechako’ mean?” Kit asked.

“You’re one; I’m one,” was the answer.

“Maybe I am, but you’ve got to search me.  What does it mean?”

“Tenderfoot.”

On his way back to the beach, Kit turned the phrase over and over.  It rankled to be called tenderfoot by a slender chit of a woman.