The Yukon Trail

who knew the Lights of Dawson when they were a magnet to the feet of those answering the call of Adventure, who mushed the Yukon Trail from its headwaters to Bering Sea, who still finds in the Frozen North the Romance of the Last Frontier.

Contents

I. Going "In" 1 II. Enter a Man 10 III. The Girl from Drogheda 23 IV. The Crevasse 34 V. Across the Traverse 49 VI. Sheba sings--and Two Men listen 58 VII. Wally gets Orders 71 VIII. The End of the Passage 82 IX. Gid Holt goes prospecting 93 X. The Rah-Rah Boy functions 109 XI. Gordon invites himself to Dinner--and does not enjoy it 125 XII. Sheba says "Perhaps" 137 XIII. Diane and Gordon differ 144 XIV. Genevieve Mallory takes a Hand 156 XV. Gordon buys a Revolver 170 XVI. Ambushed 181 XVII. "God save you kindly" 193 XVIII. Gordon spends a Busy Evening 201 XIX. Sheba does not think so 210 XX. Gordon finds himself Unpopular 217 XXI. A New Way of leaving a House 227 XXII. Gid Holt comes to Kusiak 232 XXIII. In the Dead of Night 241 XXIV. Macdonald follows a Clue 247 XXV. In the Blizzard 256 XXVI. Hard Mushing 268 XXVII. Two on the Trail 275 XXVIII. A Message from the Dead 286 XXIX. "Don't touch him! Don't you dare touch him!" 292 XXX. Holt frees his Mind 301 XXXI. Sheba digs 308 XXXII. Diane changes her Mind 318

Illustrations

Now he caught her by the shoulders Frontispiece "So you think I'm a 'fraid-cat, Mr. Elliot?" 44 The situation was piquant, even though it was at her expense 236 For him the beauty of the night lay largely in her presence 322

The Yukon Trail

CHAPTER I

GOING "IN"

The midnight sun had set, but in a crotch between two snow-peaks it had kindled a vast caldron from which rose a mist of jewels, garnet and turquoise, topaz and amethyst and opal, all swimming in a sea of molten gold. The glow of it still clung to the face of the broad Yukon, as a flush does to the soft, wrinkled cheek of a girl just roused from deep sleep.

Except for a faint murkiness in the air it was still day. There was light enough for the four men playing pinochle on the upper deck, though the women of their party, gossiping in chairs grouped near at hand, had at last put aside their embroidery. The girl who sat by herself at a little distance held a magazine still open on her lap. If she were not reading, her attitude suggested it was less because of the dusk than that she had surrendered herself to the spell of the mysterious beauty which for this hour at least had transfigured the North to a land all light and atmosphere and color.

Gordon Elliot had taken the boat at Pierre's Portage, fifty miles farther down the river. He had come direct from the creeks, and his impressions of the motley pioneer life at the gold-diggings were so vivid that he had found an isolated corner of the deck where he could scribble them in a notebook while still fresh.

But he had not been too busy to see that the girl in the wicker chair was as much of an outsider as he was. Plainly this was her first trip in. Gordon was a stranger in the Yukon country, one not likely to be over-welcome when it became known what his mission was. It may have been because he was out of the picture himself that he resented a little the exclusion of the young woman with the magazine. Certainly she herself gave no evidence of feeling about it. Her long-lashed eyes looked dreamily across the river to the glowing hills beyond. Not once did they turn with any show of interest to the lively party under the awning.

From where he was leaning against the deckhouse Elliot could see only a fine, chiseled profile shading into a mass of crisp, black hair, but some quality in the detachment of her personality stimulated gently his imagination. He wondered who she could be. His work had taken him to frontier camps before, but he could not place her as a type. The best he could do was to guess that she might be the daughter of some territorial official on her way in to join him.