"A little less flesh, perhaps, and a little more muscle. How did _you_
mean?"

But she shrugged her shoulders and peered I through the dim light at the
Indian girl, who had lighted the fire and was frying great chunks of
moose meat, alternated with thin ribbons of bacon.

"Did you stop in Dawson long?" The man was whittling a stave of
birchwood into a rude axe-handle, and asked the question without raising
his head.

"Oh, a few days," she answered, following the girl with her eyes, and
hardly hearing. "What were you saying? In Dawson? A month, in fact,
and glad to get away. The arctic male is elemental, you know, and
somewhat strenuous in his feelings."

"Bound to be when he gets right down to the soil. He leaves convention
with the spring bed at borne. But you were wise in your choice of time
for leaving. You'll be out of the country before mosquito season, which
is a blessing your lack of experience will not permit you to appreciate."

"I suppose not. But tell me about yourself, about your life. What kind
of neighbors have you? Or have you any?"

While she queried she watched the girl grinding coffee in the corner of a
flower sack upon the hearthstone. With a steadiness and skill which
predicated nerves as primitive as the method, she crushed the imprisoned
berries with a heavy fragment of quartz. David Payne noted his visitor's
gaze, and the shadow of a smile drifted over his lips.