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But the adolescence of Ophir was short. It quickly outgrew its age of fictitious values, and its rapturous delusions vanished as hole after hole was put to bed-rock and betrayed no pay. Entire valleys that were formerly considered rich were abandoned, and the driving snows erased the signs of human effort. Men came in out of the hills cursing the luck that had brought them there. The gold-bearing area narrowed to a proved creek or two where the ground was taken and where there were ten men for every job; the saloons began to fill with idlers who talked much, but spent nothing. One day the camp awakened to the fact that it was a failure. There is nothing more ghastly than a broken mining-town, for in place of the first feverish exhilaration there is naught but the wreck of hopes and the ruin of ambitions.

McGill’s wife was not the last to appreciate the truth; she saw it coming even earlier than the rest. Once she had lost the first glamour and fully attuned herself to the new life she was sufficiently perceptive to realize her great mistake. But McGill did not notice the change and saw nothing to worry about in the town’s affairs. He had been poor most of his life, and his rare periods of opulence had ended briefly, therefore this failure meant merely another trial. Ophir had given him his prize, greater than all the riches of its namesake, and who could be other than happy with a wife like his? His very optimism, combined with her own fierce disappointment, drove the woman nearly frantic. She felt abused, she reasoned that McGill had betrayed her, and at last owned to the hunger she had been striving vainly to stifle for months past. Now that there was nothing to gain, why blind herself to the truth? She hated McGill, and she loved another! There had never been an instant when her heart had not called.

And then, to make matters worse, Barclay came. He had spent most of the long winter at the steamboat landing, being too angry to show himself in Ophir, but the woman-hunger had grown upon him, as upon all men in the North, and it finally drew him to her with a strength that would have snapped iron chains. Hearing, shortly after his arrival, that McGill was out on the creeks and never returned until dark, he went to the cabin. Alice opened the door at his knock, then fell back with a cry. He shut out the cold air behind him and stood looking at her until she gasped:

“Why have you come here?”

“Why? Because I couldn’t stay away. You knew I’d have to come, didn’t you?”

“McGill!” she whispered, and cast a frightened look over her shoulder.

“Does he know?”

She shook her head.

“I hear he’s broke–like the rest.” Barclay laughed mockingly, and she nodded. “Have you had enough?”

“Yes, yes! Oh yes!” she wailed, suddenly. “Take me away, Bob. Oh, take me away!”

She was in his arms with the words, her breast to his, her arms about his neck, her hot tears starting. She clutched him wildly, while he covered her face with kisses.

“Don’t scold me,” she sobbed. “Don’t! I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You’ll take me away, won’t you?”

“Hush!” he commanded. “I can’t take you away; there’s no place to go to. That’s the worst of this damned country. He’d follow–and he’d get us.”

“You must, Bob! You must ! I’ll die here with him. I’ve stood it as long as I can–“

“Don’t be a fool. You’ll have to go through with it now until spring. Once the river is open–“

“No, no, no!” she cried, passionately.

“Do you want us to get killed?”

Mrs. McGill shivered as if some wintry blast had searched out her marrow, then freed herself from his embrace and said, slowly: “You’re right, Bob. We must be very careful. I–I don’t know what he might do.”