“Left it up yonder.” He glanced through the open door to the white surf curling up above the tundra, and with his wild head he made a little motion to the north. But not even long enough to drink did he stop his feverish whittling. As she put the cup on a tin cracker-box, set within his reach, she saw there was a little heap of shavings and splinters in the hollow of the blanket between the man’s gaunt knees, and she noticed that he held his knife with grotesque awkwardness. Then, with an inward shrinking, saw that to every finger but two, the final joint or more was lacking. “How dreadfully you’ve been hurt.” He looked up and then followed the direction of her glance. “Yes, I got a good deal mauled”—only half-articulate the iterated burden—“up yonder.” His voice made her heart ache for pity of such utter weakness. The task he had set himself looked as painful as impossible. Yet remembering the solace whittling seems to be to certain backwoodsmen: “Do you do that for amusement?” she asked diffidently. “If that’s what it is, I shan’t lack entertainment.” She looked wonderingly in his face. “I was weeks before cutting up a little wood. But somebody stole it. Scarcer than gold up here.” Oh, yes, the discoverer of the Mother Lode had stores of the precious metal hidden away somewhere. The skulker among the rocks—_he_ knew! “Let me help.” She went closer with outstretched hand. But he started and dropped the clumsily held wood. It all happened in an instant. Hildegarde, following the look on the wild face he was bending down, saw that his concern was not for the precious and sole piece of timber in the hut, but for the oilskin bundle under the bed, which her dog was in the act of investigating. The half-blind beast on the blanket saw, too. She made one bound and fell upon Hildegarde’s companion with a fury that filled the narrow space with noise of battle. The sick man called off his dog, while Hildegarde reviled hers and tugged at his collar. When peace was again restored, “I must take him away,” said his mistress. “He’s behaving very badly.” “No, it will be all right if I—” The sick man leaned still further over the side of the narrow bed, and fastened the hand Hildegarde couldn’t bear to look at under the knotted oilskin. As she saw him feebly straining to lift it: “Oh, let me,” she said, and bent to help him. Again his dog flew to the rescue, while the man himself, with a desperate final effort, almost snatched the bundle from under her fingers. “I—I beg your pardon,” he said panting, and again he made his dog lie down. But Hildegarde’s feelings were a little hurt. The normal miner, she had always understood, showed people his gold—even trusted them to handle it. “Poor old Ky,” the sick man went on apologetically; “she has got so used to guarding this”—he was himself positively hugging the unsavory bundle—“she can’t see any other creature come near it without—”