“Attractive!” Mrs. Mar repeated with a weight of contemptuous meaning. “Since what you imply is so little a credit to your sex, I may be allowed to say she has shot at a mark with her brothers, and if it’s necessary, she can carry a revolver.” “Good God! And you’re her mother!” Mrs. Mar sprang to her feet. “Yes, I’m her mother, and that I didn’t myself suggest her going to get her father to come home, is only that I’m under the spell of the old foolishness about women. The fact is, that we’re much better able to look out for ourselves than men are—yes, stare as much as you like! It’s so. You’re all _babies_, I tell you, and if the women didn’t look after you, you’d be _dead_ babies!” Cheviot snatched up his hat a second time and walked to the door. Mrs. Mar, seeing him going off like that with never another word, and with that fixed wretchedness on his face, quickly crossed the room and took hold of his arm, as his hand was on the door knob. “Hildegarde is only going to do in a more open way what women are always doing,” she said. Cheviot turned angrily, but so astonished was he to see tears on her face that he stood speechless. “Some woman said it in a magazine the other day,” she went on, “but every woman who’s good for anything is doing it.” “Going to Nome!” “Going out to the battlefield in the evening to look after the wounded.” CHAPTER XIV Hildegarde wrote to Madeleine Smulsky, now Mrs. Jacob L. Dorn. Madeleine’s husband, being a Pacific Coast importer in a large way, might be able to advise in which of the fleet of steamers advertised to sail from San Francisco, and certain to be the first boat of the year to reach Nome—in which should a traveler put trust. The answer brought Mr. Dorn’s somewhat scornful profession that he knew nothing whatever about the hastily formed San Francisco lines, and little good about the mushroom companies of his own city, but if Hildegarde thought of sailing from Seattle he would look into the matter for her. Seattle was the better port, being the natural gateway to the North (Hildegarde could hear Mr. Dorn saying that), in witness whereof the bustling, booming city swarmed already with more prospective passengers than there were ships to float them—all wisely laying in their provisions, buying machinery and outfit in that best of all places—San Francisco? oh, dear, no! in Seattle, the City of the Future! Hildegarde must at all events come and visit the Dorns. Under the guidance of Madeleine’s husband, she would probably find out that, at best, the journey to Nome was impracticable for a lady.