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“Then you won’t make it any harder for me than you can help?”

“No.” He rose stiffly. “You’re entitled to a fair show at anything you want. I don’t like Barclay, but if you want him around, I won’t object. Try to be as happy as you can, Alice; maybe it’ll all come out right. Only–I wish you’d known it wasn’t love before you married me.” He put on his cap and went out into the cold.

During the ensuing week or two he devoted himself to his work, spending every daylight hour on his claim, in this way more than satisfying Barclay and the woman, who felt that a great menace had been removed. But Hopper determined that his friend should know all and not part of the truth, for good men are rare and weak women in the way, so he put on his parka and walked out to the place where McGill was working, and there, under a bleak March sky, with the snow-flurries wrapping their legs about, he told what he had learned. Hopper was a little man, but he had courage.

“I’ve heard it from half a dozen fellers,” he concluded, “and they’d ought to know, because they come up on the same boat with them. Anyhow, you can satisfy yourself easy enough.”

McGill moistened his lips and, thanking his informant, said, “Now you’d better hustle back to camp; we’re due for a storm.”

It was still early afternoon when he walked swiftly out of the gulch and into the straggling little town. On his way down from the claim the blizzard had broken, or so it seemed, for the narrow valley had suddenly become filled with a whirling smother through which he burst like a ship through a fog. When he emerged upon the flats he saw that it was no more than a squall and the wind was abating again.

His moccasins made no sound as he came up to his own house, and the first inkling of his presence that the two inside received was when the door opened and he stood before them. Something in his bearing caused his wife to clutch at the table for support, and Barclay to retreat with his back to the opposite wall, his hand inside his coat.

McGill never carried a weapon, having yet to feel the need of one. He spoke now in a harsh, cracked voice. “Take your hand off that gun, Barclay.”

“What’s the matter with you?” the younger man questioned.

Mrs. McGill’s eyes were wide with terror, her frame racked by apprehension, when her husband turned upon her and asked:

“Is it true? Do you love–him?” He jerked his head in Barclay’s direction. “Answer me!” he rumbled, savagely, as she hesitated.

Her lips moved, and she nodded without removing her gaze from him.

“How long have you loved him?”

When she still could not master herself, he softened his voice: “You needn’t be scared, Alice. I couldn’t hurt you.”

“A long–time,” she said, finally.

McGill leveled a look at the other man.

“That’s right,” Barclay agreed. “You might as well know.”

“They tell me that you and her had–” McGill ground his teeth, and his little eyes blazed–“that she didn’t have no right to marry without–telling me something about you.”

The former answered through white lips: “Well? Everybody knew it except you, and you could have found out. I’d have married her sometime, myself, if you hadn’t come along.”

McGill’s fingers opened slowly, at which the woman burst forth:

“No, no! Don’t–do that. You can’t blame him, Dan. I did it. Don’t you understand? I’m the one. I loved him in ‘Frisco, long before I saw you, and I’ve loved him ever since. Take it out on me, if you want to, but don’t hurt him.”

“I don’t reckon I’d have minded it much if I’d known the truth at the start,” said McGill. “Most women have made mistakes at one time or another, at least most of those I’ve known have. No, it ain’t that, but you married me knowing that you loved him all the time.”