“Ah, you forget the Slav,” Corliss suggested slyly.

“The Slav!” Her face fell.  “True, the Slav!  The only stripling in this world of young men and gray-beards!  But he is still in the future, and in the future the decision rests.  In the mean time we prepare.  If may be we shall have such a start that we shall prevent him growing.  You know, because he was better skilled in chemistry, knew how to manufacture gunpowder, that the Spaniard destroyed the Aztec.  May not we, who are possessing ourselves of the world and its resources, and gathering to ourselves all its knowledge, may not we nip the Slav ere he grows a thatch to his lip?”

Vance Corliss shook his head non-committally, and laughed.

“Oh!  I know I become absurd and grow over-warm!” she exclaimed.  “But after all, one reason that we are the salt of the earth is because we have the courage to say so.”

“And I am sure your warmth spreads,” he responded.  “See, I’m beginning to glow myself.  We are not God’s, but Nature’s chosen people, we Angles, and Saxons, and Normans, and Vikings, and the earth is our heritage.  Let us arise and go forth!”

“Now you are laughing at me, and, besides, we have already gone forth.  Why have you fared into the north, if not to lay hands on the race legacy?”

She turned her head at the sound of approaching footsteps, and cried for greeting, “I appeal to you, Captain Alexander!  I summon you to bear witness!”

The captain of police smiled in his sternly mirthful fashion as he shook hands with Frona and Corliss.  “Bear witness?” he questioned.  “Ah, yes!

  “’Bear witness, O my comrades, what a hard-bit gang were we,—­
  The servants of the sweep-head, but the masters of the sea!’”

He quoted the verse with a savage solemnity exulting through his deep voice.  This, and the appositeness of it, quite carried Frona away, and she had both his hands in hers on the instant.  Corliss was aware of an inward wince at the action.  It was uncomfortable.  He did not like to see her so promiscuous with those warm, strong hands of hers.  Did she so favor all men who delighted her by word or deed?  He did not mind her fingers closing round his, but somehow it seemed wanton when shared with the next comer.  By the time he had thought thus far, Frona had explained the topic under discussion, and Captain Alexander was testifying.

“I don’t know much about your Slav and other kin, except that they are good workers and strong; but I do know that the white man is the greatest and best breed in the world.  Take the Indian, for instance.  The white man comes along and beats him at all his games, outworks him, out-roughs him, out-fishes him, out-hunts him.  As far back as their myths go, the Alaskan Indians have packed on their backs.  But the gold-rushers, as soon as they had learned the tricks of the trade, packed greater loads and packed them farther than did the Indians.  Why, last May, the Queen’s birthday, we had sports on the river.  In the one, two, three, four, and five men canoe races we beat the Indians right and left.  Yet they had been born to the paddle, and most of us had never seen a canoe until man-grown.”