“Why should you be frightened,” said Hildegarde sternly. “It isn’t as if I were a rescue party and my little journey were to the other side of the world. I shouldn’t sail from Norway, and I shouldn’t catch up with anybody in Franz Josef Land.” “Hildegarde! You’ve never spoken to me like that before in your life.” “No, I’ve never admitted before that you’d failed me.” Bella, with flushed face, got up to leave the room. “You think I’m backing out only because of what Louis says. But I meant to tell you it would have been terrible to me to be responsible for your going, after what you said that night Louis came home.” “What did I say?” “That this summer, while you’re gone—” “Well?” “There will be news.” “You mean from—” “Yes,” Bella steeled herself. “As soon as I’d got you out of the way—” Hildegarde winced; rather dreadful that she should have said that to Bella—too like what the average male critic would expect. “Did I say _you_, Bella? I only meant fate.” “You were sure he would come this summer. Stay and see.” “It’s only if I’m not here that John Galbraith will come.” Hildegarde had a final interview with the arch culprit, Cheviot. “I had no idea you could be like this,” she said, toward the close. “Then it’s as well you should know.” It ended in a breach. He came no more to the house. Hildegarde passed him in the street with lowered eyes. And Bella had gone home. * * * * * The spring went creeping by. Now June was gone. Even July. Still no news. “You see,” said Hildegarde dully, “father isn’t coming back.” August was waning—not even a letter. And from that other more terrible North, no syllable of the tidings, that to reach those two waiting in California, must come round by the old world, and all across the new. “He is dead,” Hildegarde said to herself, and it was not of Nathaniel Mar that she was thinking. The boys had generously sent their father both money and advice. He was recommended to use the sight draft on the Alaska Commercial Company, for the purpose of buying his home passage by the very next ship. At last, when the season was drawing to a close—news! Not that expected—but something no man had looked for. Gold had been discovered in the sands of the Nome beach. Men who had been stranded there—arriving too late for a claim on the creeks—a broken and ragged horde, were now persons of substance and of cheerful occupation, that of “rocking out” fifty to a hundred dollars a day upon the beach at Nome. The gold was not here alone, but under the moss and the coarse grass of the tundra. It clung to the roots when you pulled up the sedgy growths. It was everywhere. What was the contracted little valley of the Klondike compared to this! “The greatest of all the new world gold-fields has been found. A region, vaster than half a dozen Eastern States, sown broadcast with gold-dust and nuggets. Easy to reach and easy to work.”