be asking him to remember her.

[11]

He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, as if defying Fate: turning away from the window, he reseated himself upon the upturned box by the red-hot stove.

Pooh! he'd been a fool to give way to retrospection. He was no exception to the general rule; most men mismanaged their careers—more or less. Still, he was bound to confess that he had done so rather more than less. Oh well, he would settle down to his fate. As for that other girl in the Yukon miner's dress, who would keep intruding herself, she also must be forgotten.

But at that point, perversely enough, he began to think about her. What was she doing at the present time? Where was she? Did she still remember him? Had she made her fortune up there out of their last[12] big strike? How had she construed his sudden and unexplained departure? He swore softly to himself, and rising, went over to the window again. Then he pressed closer as if to make certain of something, gazing up the long glimmering stretch of frozen river to the west.

[12]

There was a strange man coming down; strange to those parts, at any rate, though Granger seemed to recognise something familiar in his stride. He was driving his dogs furiously, lashing them on with frenzied brutality, coming on apace, turning his head ever and again from side to side, peering across his shoulder and looking behind, as if he feared a thing which followed him—which was out of sight.

 

CHAPTER II

[13] 

[13]

THE UNBIDDEN GUEST

Granger, having withdrawn himself to one side of the window so that he might not be observed from the outside, watched the stranger's approach in anxious silence. Nearer and nearer he came, till in that still air it was possible to hear the panting of his huskies as they lunged forward in the traces, jerking their bodies to right and left as they desperately strove to escape the descending lash of the punishing whip. The man himself tottered as he ran, stubbing the toes of his snowshoes every now and then as he took a new step. Once from sheer weakness he nearly fell, whereupon the dogs came to a sudden halt, sat down on 

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