of defence, we found ourselves follerin' her out into a yelling storm
that beat and roared over us like waves of flame.

Swede luck had guided their shaft onto the richest pay-streak in
seven districts, and Swede luck now led us to the Lund boys, curled
up in the drifted snow beside their dogs; but it was the level head
and cool judgment of a woman that steered us home in the grey whirl
of the dawn.

During the deathly weariness of that night I saw past the calloused
hide of that woman and sighted the splendid courage cached away
beneath her bitter oratory and hosstyle syllogisms. "There's a story
there," thinks I, "an' maybe a man moved in it--though I can't
imagine her softened by much affection." It pleased some guy to
state that woman's the cause of all our troubles, but I figger
they're like whisky--all good, though some a heap better'n others, of
course, and when a frail, little, ninety pound woman gets to bucking
and acting bad, there's generally a two hundred pound man hid out in
the brush that put the burr under the saddle.

During the next three days she dressed the wounds of them
Scow-weegians and nursed them as tender as a mother.

The wind hadn't died away till along came the "Flying Dutchman" from
Dugan's, twenty miles up, floatin' on the skirts of the blizzard.

"Hello, fellers. Howdy, Annie. What's the matter here?" says he.
"We had a woman at Dugan's too--purty as a picture; different from
the Nome bunch--real sort of a lady."