he started on his Northland quest.

"What d'ye say?" Hitchcock repeated.

"Mebbe it's not so serious," Hawes answered with deliberation. "Most
likely it's only a girl's story."

"That isn't the point!" Hitchcock felt a hot flush of anger sweep over
him at their evident reluctance. "The question is, if it is so, are we
going to stand it? What are we going to do?"

"I don't see any call to interfere," spoke up Wertz. "If it is so, it is
so, and that's all there is about it. It's a way these people have of
doing. It's their religion, and it's no concern of ours. Our concern is
to get the dust and then get out of this God-forsaken land. 'T isn't fit
for naught else but beasts? And what are these black devils but beasts?
Besides, it'd be damn poor policy."

"That's what I say," chimed in Hawes. "Here we are, four of us, three
hundred miles from the Yukon or a white face. And what can we do against
half-a-hundred Indians? If we quarrel with them, we have to vamose; if
we fight, we are wiped out. Further, we've struck pay, and, by God! I,
for one, am going to stick by it!"

"Ditto here," supplemented Wertz.

Hitchcock turned impatiently to Sigmund, who was softly singing,--

"In a year, in a year, when the grapes are ripe,
I shall stay no more away."