Though genial in conversation, and mild when at rest, the blue eyes gave promise of the hard steel-glitter which comes when called into action, especially against odds.  The heavy jaw and square-cut chin demonstrated rugged pertinacity and indomitability.  Nor, though the attributes of the lion were there, was there wanting the certain softness, the hint of womanliness, which bespoke the emotional nature.

‘So thet’s how me an’ the ol’ woman got spliced,’ said Belden, concluding the exciting tale of his courtship. ’"Here we be, Dad,” sez she.  “An’ may yeh be damned,” sez he to her, an’ then to me, “Jim, yeh—­yeh git outen them good duds o’ yourn; I want a right peart slice o’ thet forty acre plowed ‘fore dinner.”  An’ then he sort o’ sniffled an’ kissed her.  An’ I was thet happy—­but he seen me an’ roars out, “Yeh, Jim!” An’ yeh bet I dusted fer the barn.’  ’Any kids waiting for you back in the States?’ asked the stranger.

’Nope; Sal died ‘fore any come.  Thet’s why I’m here.’  Belden abstractedly began to light his pipe, which had failed to go out, and then brightened up with, ’How ’bout yerself, stranger—­married man?’ For reply, he opened his watch, slipped it from the thong which served for a chain, and passed it over.  Belden picked up the slush lamp, surveyed the inside of the case critically, and, swearing admiringly to himself, handed it over to Louis Savoy.  With numerous ‘By gars!’ he finally surrendered it to Prince, and they noticed that his hands trembled and his eyes took on a peculiar softness.  And so it passed from horny hand to horny hand—­the pasted photograph of a woman, the clinging kind that such men fancy, with a babe at the breast.  Those who had not yet seen the wonder were keen with curiosity; those who had became silent and retrospective.  They could face the pinch of famine, the grip of scurvy, or the quick death by field or flood; but the pictured semblance of a stranger woman and child made women and children of them all.

’Never have seen the youngster yet—­he’s a boy, she says, and two years old,’ said the stranger as he received the treasure back.  A lingering moment he gazed upon it, then snapped the case and turned away, but not quick enough to hide the restrained rush of tears.  Malemute Kid led him to a bunk and bade him turn in.

‘Call me at four sharp.  Don’t fail me,’ were his last words, and a moment later he was breathing in the heaviness of exhausted sleep.

‘By Jove!  He’s a plucky chap,’ commented Prince.  ‘Three hours’ sleep after seventy-five miles with the dogs, and then the trail again.  Who is he, Kid?’ ’Jack Westondale.  Been in going on three years, with nothing but the name of working like a horse, and any amount of bad luck to his credit.  I never knew him, but Sitka Charley told me about him.’  ’It seems hard that a man with a sweet young wife like his should be putting in his years in this Godforsaken hole, where every year counts two on the