“Go on!  Go on!  Don’t take all night about it!” Pentfield cried sharply, bending his nails on the table, so tight was the clutch with which he strove to control himself.

The dice rolled forth, an upturned six meeting their eyes.  Both men sat staring at it.  There was a long silence.  Hutchinson shot a covert glance at his partner, who, still more covertly, caught it, and pursed up his lips in an attempt to advertise his unconcern.

Hutchinson laughed as he got up on his feet.  It was a nervous, apprehensive laugh.  It was a case where it was more awkward to win than lose.  He walked over to his partner, who whirled upon him fiercely:-

“Now you just shut up, Corry!  I know all you’re going to say—­that you’d rather stay in and let me go, and all that; so don’t say it.  You’ve your own people in Detroit to see, and that’s enough.  Besides, you can do for me the very thing I expected to do if I went out.”

“And that is—?”

Pentfield read the full question in his partner’s eyes, and answered:-

“Yes, that very thing.  You can bring her in to me.  The only difference will be a Dawson wedding instead of a San Franciscan one.”

“But, man alike!” Corry Hutchinson objected “how under the sun can I bring her in?  We’re not exactly brother and sister, seeing that I have not even met her, and it wouldn’t be just the proper thing, you know, for us to travel together.  Of course, it would be all right—­you and I know that; but think of the looks of it, man!”

Pentfield swore under his breath, consigning the looks of it to a less frigid region than Alaska.

“Now, if you’ll just listen and not get astride that high horse of yours so blamed quick,” his partner went on, “you’ll see that the only fair thing under the circumstances is for me to let you go out this year.  Next year is only a year away, and then I can take my fling.”

Pentfield shook his head, though visibly swayed by the temptation.

“It won’t do, Corry, old man.  I appreciate your kindness and all that, but it won’t do.  I’d be ashamed every time I thought of you slaving away in here in my place.”

A thought seemed suddenly to strike him.  Burrowing into his bunk and disrupting it in his eagerness, he secured a writing-pad and pencil, and sitting down at the table, began to write with swiftness and certitude.

“Here,” he said, thrusting the scrawled letter into his partner’s hand.  “You just deliver that and everything’ll be all right.”

Hutchinson ran his eye over it and laid it down.

“How do you know the brother will be willing to make that beastly trip in here?” he demanded.

“Oh, he’ll do it for me—­and for his sister,” Pentfield replied.  “You see, he’s tenderfoot, and I wouldn’t trust her with him alone.  But with you along it will be an easy trip and a safe one.  As soon as you get out, you’ll go to her and prepare her.  Then you can take your run east to your own people, and in the spring she and her brother’ll be ready to start with you.  You’ll like her, I know, right from the jump; and from that, you’ll know her as soon as you lay eyes on her.”