She stood up and touched him on the arm. "I don't think you'll ever be beaten," she said. He shook his head, almost fearful of meeting those clear, beautiful eyes of hers. "Only one thing in the world can beat me," he said. "And that is the thing which above all others I'm mad to get; and it ain't gold." He spent the evening packing up the gear and the food that remained, ready for the journey down the river. The home-made sled was again requisitioned, after undergoing sundry repairs. Late in the evening Angela, from the inner room, called him. Nervously he went inside, to find her with her wonderful hair flowing over her shoulders and her dress half undone. "I--I can't get it off," she complained. He attended to the stubborn buttons and pulled the top down over her shoulders. On the threshold of the door he called back. "Good-night, Angela." She stood surveying him intently, and then came towards him. "Whatever lies before us, don't think me ungrateful. I'll try to be a good comrade in the future if you'll let me. You've suffered so much.... It was never my wish that you should suffer. Even a bought wife has--a soul." He saw the swell of her bosom below the pure white shoulders. All her intoxicating beauty seemed to be pleading to him. Her lips, made for kissing, were like alluring blossoms of spring. For a moment he stood drunk with passionate desire. Then he touched her fingers lightly and went outside. CHAPTER XIX THE CRISIS It was spring on the Yukon--the radiant, glorious spring that is sandwiched between the intense winter and the dank, enervating summer. Birds sang in the woods, their liquid voices accompanied by the deep noise of the river, belching its millions of tons of ice into the Bering Sea. In the lower valleys the snow had vanished, and the rich green carpet of the earth shimmered in the clear sunlight. South of Fort Yukon Angela and Jim were threading their way through a pine-forest. Both carried packs on their backs, for the sled had been discarded but a few days before, having served them faithfully for a hundred-odd miles. Jim found a small clearing and slung the huge pack from his shoulders. Angela discarded her smaller pack and came to help him rig up the tent. "Better than the winter, eh?" he queried, as an inquisitive bird came and hopped around them. "In many ways, but the winter's wonderful enough when one has grown acclimatized. I shall never forget those mountains and the glory of the sunset.... Are we far from Dawson?" "Two hundred miles or so." "And will the food last out?"