“Oh, please try to remember. He is very thin and tall, with bushy hair. I feel sure you’d remember him if you thought a moment. He is the kind people remember.” Something in the trembling earnestness of a person who looked as self-possessed as Hildegarde had its effect. “You can know people up there pretty well and never hear their names. Nome is like that. I may have seen him.” Oh, how close it brought him to hear the dun-colored husband saying, “I may have seen him!” “A young man?” asked the wife. “No,” said Hildegarde, and she was shaking with excitement. “He is gray, and he—he is very lame.” This bald picture of her own drawing suddenly overcame her. “Try,”—she found herself catching at the rusty arm—“try to remember. He is my father.” “Oh, your father,” said the woman in a different tone, and the vague man turned his pale eyes on Hildegarde as though only now fully aware of her. “Lame! There was a lame man. No, I never spoke to him.” “We weren’t much in Nome,” the woman explained. “Our claims are out on Glaysher River, and we were at our camp there most of the time.” Hildegarde leaned against the brilliant dado of Delicious Tomato Soup, and she looked so disheartened the man said, “Was you thinkin’ o’ goin’ out?” “Yes, I’m going to him.” “Big party?” “No, no party at all.” “You’re not goin’ alone?” “Yes, I’m the only one of my family who has time.” The pale eye fell on Hildegarde’s list, which she still had in her hand. “If your father’s there you won’t have to take supplies.” “I must go prepared for—anything.” And she turned her face away. After a pause, “You got anybody to advise you?” said the man. “No.” The rusty woman looked at the vague man, and the vague man looked at Van Camp’s Soup. “Where are you at?” he said presently. Hildegarde stared. He pushed back his black slouch hat and sadly mopped his yellow-gray brow. It was warm to-day. The crowd at Baumgarten’s made it seem warmer still. “Which hotel?” asked Mr. Blumpitty. “I’m not at any hotel. I am at Mr. Jacob Dorn’s.” “Jacob L. Dorn’s?” “Oh, do you know him?” “No, I don’t know him, but I know his firm.” It was plain the name had impressed both Blumpittys. “What boat you goin’ in?” asked the yellow-gray man. “The _Congress_.” “Oh!” “What’s the matter with the _Congress_?” Blumpitty shook his head, murmured, “—pretty hot,” and slowly divested himself of his overcoat. That done he stood revealed in black from head to heel. Something inexpressibly funereal about him now, that the dun-colored coat had masked. “Pity you didn’t know about the _Los Angeles_,” he said dolefully. “What is there to know about her?” “She’s goin’ to be fitted up in style.” “Oh, I shan’t mind style.” “We’re goin’ on the _Los Angeles_,” said the little wife. “I do mind that—not going with you.” Hildegarde looked into the woman’s weather-beaten face, and felt regret deepen.