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Soon after the winter had settled, two strangers “mushed” in from down-river. For ten days they had pulled their own sled through the first dry, trackless snow of the season, and they were well spent, but they brought news that the steamboat was in winter quarters a hundred and fifty miles below. They assured McGill, moreover, that there was plenty of food aboard, so, a day later, he set off on their back trail with his dog-team. By now the melancholy autumn was gone, the air was frozen clean of every taint, the frost made men’s blood gallop through their veins. It changed McGill into a boy again. His lungs ached from the throbbing power within them, his loping stride was as smooth as that of a timber-wolf, his loud, deep laughter caused the dogs to yelp in answer.

When he finally burst out of the silence and into the midst of the gold-seekers with tidings of the new camp only a hundred and fifty miles away they shook off their lethargy and awoke to a great excitement. He told all he honestly knew about Ophir, and with nimble fancies they added two words of their own to every one of his. They stopped work upon their winter quarters and made ready to push on afoot–on hands and knees, if necessary. Here was a man who had made a fortune in one short autumn, for with the customary ignorance of tenderfeet they perceived no distinction between a mining claim and a mine. A gold-mine, they reasoned, was worth anything one wished to imagine, from a hundred thousand to a million; thirty gold-mines were worth thirty millions–figure it out for yourself. The conservative ones cut the result in half and were well satisfied with it. They were glad they had come.

The steamboat captain offered McGill a bed in his own cabin, for the log houses were not yet completed, and that night at supper the miner met the rest of the big family. Among them was a girl. Once McGill had beheld her, he could see none of the others; he became an automaton, directing his words at random, but focusing his soul upon her. He could not recall her name, for her first glance had driven all memory out of his head, and during the meal he feasted his hungry eyes upon her, feeling a yearning such as he had never before experienced. He did not pause to argue what it foretold; it is doubtful if he would have realized had he taken time to think, for he had never known women well, and ten years in the Yukon country had dimmed what youthful recollections he possessed. When he went to bed he was in a daze that did not vanish even when the captain, after carefully locking the doors and closing the cabin shutters, crawled under the bunk and brought forth a five-gallon keg of whisky, which he fondled like a mother her babe.

“Wait till you taste it,” crooned the old man. “Nothing like it north of Vancouver. If I didn’t keep it hid I’d have a mutiny.”

He removed a steaming kettle from the stove, then, unearthing some sugar from the chart-case, mixed a toddy, muttering: “Just wait, that’s all. You just wait!” With the pains of a chemist he divided the beverage into two equal portions, rolled the contents of his own glass under his tongue with a look of beatitude on his wrinkled features, then inquired, “What did I tell you?”

“It’s great,” McGill acknowledged. “First real liquor I’ve tasted for months.” Then he fell to staring at the fire.

After a time he asked, “Who’s the lady I was talking to?”

“The one with the red sweater?”

“Yes.”

“Miss Andrews. Her first name is Alice.”

“Alice!” McGill spoke it softly. “I–I s’pose she’s married, of course?”

“No, Miss Andrews.”

McGill started. “I thought she was the wife of that nice-looking feller, Barclay.”