"I did have some," he replied. "Missourian chaps, and a couple of
Cornishmen, but they went down to Eldorado to work at wages for a
grubstake."

Mrs. Sayther cast a look of speculative regard upon the girl. "But of
course there are plenty of Indians about?"

"Every mother's son of them down to Dawson long ago. Not a native in the
whole country, barring Winapie here, and she's a Koyokuk lass,--comes
from a thousand miles or so down the river."

Mrs. Sayther felt suddenly faint; and though the smile of interest in no
wise waned, the face of the man seemed to draw away to a telescopic
distance, and the tiered logs of the cabin to whirl drunkenly about. But
she was bidden draw up to the table, and during the meal discovered time
and space in which to find herself. She talked little, and that
principally about the land and weather, while the man wandered off into a
long description of the difference between the shallow summer diggings of
the Lower Country and the deep winter diggings of the Upper Country.

"You do not ask why I came north?" she asked. "Surely you know." They
had moved back from the table, and David Payne had returned to his axe-
handle. "Did you get my letter?"

"A last one? No, I don't think so. Most probably it's trailing around
the Birch Creek Country or lying in some trader's shack on the Lower
River. The way they run the mails in here is shameful. No order, no
system, no--"

"Don't be wooden, Dave! Help me!" She spoke sharply now, with an