man, I know what I would do." Thus reiterated Molly, she of the flashing
eyes, and therein spoke the cumulative grit of five American-born
generations.

In the succeeding silence, Tommy thrust a pan of biscuits into the Yukon
stove and piled on fresh fuel. A reddish flood pounded along under his
sun-tanned skin, and as he stooped, the skin of his neck was scarlet.
Dick palmed a three-cornered sail needle through a set of broken pack
straps, his good nature in nowise disturbed by the feminine cataclysm
which was threatening to burst in the storm-beaten tent.

"And if you was a man?" he asked, his voice vibrant with kindness. The
three-cornered needle jammed in the damp leather, and he suspended work
for the moment.

"I'd be a man. I'd put the straps on my back and light out. I wouldn't
lay in camp here, with the Yukon like to freeze most any day, and the
goods not half over the portage. And you--you are men, and you sit here,
holding your hands, afraid of a little wind and wet. I tell you
straight, Yankee-men are made of different stuff. They'd be hitting the
trail for Dawson if they had to wade through hell-fire. And you, you--I
wish I was a man."

"I'm very glad, my dear, that you're not." Dick Humphries threw the
bight of the sail twine over the point of the needle and drew it clear
with a couple of deft turns and a jerk.

A snort of the gale dealt the tent a broad-handed slap as it hurtled
past, and the sleet rat-tat-tatted with snappy spite against the thin
canvas. The smoke, smothered in its exit, drove back through the fire-