“I need all you can possibly get me for them, Mr. Simonson.” “I’ll examine them thoroughly, Miss Mar, and let you know.” As she went out, there was Bella coming down the street. Acting on an impulse, Hildegarde turned off the main thoroughfare, pretending not to see. But it made her heart sore to think, “Bella in Valdivia, and not with us! I not even to know!” Miss Wayne went into the familiar Simonson’s. “Was that Miss Mar who was here a moment ago?” “Yes.” “Oh, is it broken? That’s the necklace I got for her in Rome.” “No, not broken. I suppose you don’t remember what you gave for it?” Miss Bella put on her most beguiling air, and took the old man into her confidence. She would buy the things herself and pay him a commission, and he was not to say but what a San Francisco dealer had made the two-hundred-dollar offer. [Illustration: “‘I know you’ll do your best for me,’ Hildegarde said, anxiously”] When she got back to her hotel she telephoned to Cheviot. The next day that young gentleman had an interview with Hildegarde’s brothers down at the ranch. They were even boisterously of Cheviot’s opinion. They would simply refuse their consent to their sister’s undertaking such a journey. But to Cheviot’s anxious sense they spoke too airily. Too certain they could prevent the abomination. “Don’t antagonize her, you know,” warned Cheviot. “Make her see the reasonableness of our—of your objection.” And the boys agreed. Even before Cheviot had made money in the Klondike, and come home to be made a partner in the bank; the Mar boys had looked upon him, not only as a probable, but as a highly desirable brother-in-law. They soothed his natural indignation at Hildegarde’s foolishness, and they told him they’d meet him at the bank after giving her a talking to. They were late for the appointment, and the moment they appeared in the room behind the public offices, Cheviot saw they had not prospered. “Hildegarde’s the most pig-headed creature in the universe!”—and a few more illuminating details. “But why didn’t you tell her—” “Told her everything. Water on a duck’s back.” “But what did she say?” “‘Women have done it before.’” “It’s not true!” cried Cheviot, jumping up. “The world has never seen anything comparable to what this year’s rush to Nome will be. The mob that will be going—” “She quotes the Klondike, ‘That was worse,’ she says, ‘yet there were women among the men who got there, lived there, and came home.’ Damn it! it’s true, you know!”