“It’s all anybody has. No lumber for cabins; little even for sluices, hardly enough for rockers—to rock out the dust, you know. Wood is dearer than gold.” “_A tent!_” “I assure you there was only one thing he was really in want of.” “What was that?” “Some way to get word to you. He knew you’d be anxious. He wants you not to take his failure to heart. He thinks a great deal about that, because he says you helped—” “Yes, yes.” “He wanted me to make it quite clear to you that in spite of everything he wasn’t sorry he’d tried it. And you mustn’t be sorry either. You must write to him, Hildegarde, and reassure him.” She nodded and turned away her face, but she put up her hand like one who cannot bear much more. “He was _afraid_ you were fretting about him. I never saw him more awfully pleased and glad than when I made up my mind to come out over the ice.” “That appalling journey! You did it for him?” “No, I didn’t.” He waited, as if for a sign, and then, speaking almost surlily, “I did it for myself,” he said. “I’d been away long enough.” “Yes,” said Hildegarde, “yes, indeed.” “I couldn’t bear it any longer, sitting there in the dark and cold, and the”—she raised her eyes—“the—oh, it’s not such a bad place as people make out; if you aren’t eating your heart out to know—” “What’s father doing?” she asked hastily. “Waiting to hear from you. Waiting, like everybody else, for the ice to go out.” “What will he do when the ice goes out?” “He’s got some claims,” Cheviot lowered his voice to say. “He doesn’t want anybody but you to know, for fear there’s nothing in them. But as soon as the frost is enough out of the ground to yield to pick and shovel, he means to rock out a few tons of gravel and _see_.” “Do it himself!”—then, as Cheviot did not answer at once, “It’s simply dreadful! It’s—I can’t bear it.” She hid her face. “Don’t, Hildegarde. I wish you wouldn’t cry.” “Are you going back there?” “No, oh, no; I’m not even going back to the Klondike.” Mrs. Mar opened the door behind them. “It must be hours since you made that miserable meal in the train,” she said. “Come in here and have some supper.” Cheviot would have declined but that he knew he must some time submit to a tête-à-tête. Best get it over. After the dining-room door shut behind her mother and Cheviot, Hildegarde still sat there. The only movement about the white figure under the lamp was the salt water that welled up constantly and constantly overflowed the wide, sad eyes. The handle of the other door turned softly—a girl’s face looked in. “Bella”—the motionless figure rose out of the chair and the one at the threshold came swiftly in. “Bella”—the voice was muffled—“my father—my father doesn’t mean ever to come home.” The incoming figure stopped. “Do the letters say that?” Bella asked, awestruck. “No, Louis says so.” “Well, I think it was very heartless of him.” “No, it wasn’t. I made him. It would have been infinitely worse to be always waiting.”