The following day Lou Gordon was discharged from the hospital. During the week which they remained at the hotel for the girl to fully regain her strength both she and her father used every means at their command to locate the mysterious _Huloimee Tilakum_. But all to no purpose. The man had seemingly vanished from the face of the earth. In the prosecution of this search, Bill Ames was her most indefatigable henchman. Try as she would, the girl could not rid herself of the impression that the dog keeper knew more than he would tell. But despite her utmost endeavors to extract information, the man denied all knowledge of the vanished Stranger. And, even as he lied, nobly and desperately, Bill Ames silently cursed himself for promising silence, and bitterly he cursed MacShane for the fool he was. For he guessed rightly that no aftermath of her recent illness had caused the girl suddenly to lose all interest in life. He knew that she loved her dogs--knew her pride in them. And he knew that she should have thrilled to the heart at the vociferously expressed admiration of the crowds that came daily to visit those dogs in the corral. And knowing these things he cursed mightily under his breath as he watched her gaze upon these men in dull apathy, her eyes searching, always searching for a face that was not there. As the miserable week wore to its close hope died within the girl’s breast, for even the indefatigable Bill Ames was at last forced to admit that _Huloimee Tilakum_ was no longer in Nome. “He has gone--gone,” she murmured to herself, as she stared wide-eyed into the darkness of her room upon her last night in the hotel. “And--it’s all my fault! Oh, how could I have been such a fool? He is a man! The best man in all the world! I love him! I do love him! And--he has--gone!” Then the tears came, and for a long time the sound of muffled sobbing penetrated the darkness of the room. CHAPTER XXVI EYES IN THE DARK Back on the Koyukuk the nightless summer dragged wearily to its close for Lou Gordon. Father and daughter had been given an ovation in Nolan upon their return from Nome. It was a great moment in the little Arctic camp, when Lou Gordon placed in the hands of Clem Wilcox bank drafts totaling in the neighborhood of one hundred thousand dollars for distribution among the men who had backed her dogs to win. Instead of reviving her spirits, the long homeward journey had served only to increase the aching void in her breast. Even the gala day that celebrated their arrival in Nolan failed to arouse any enthusiasm in her heart, and in the little cabin on Myrtle she took up her round of duties as one assumes drudgery. In July, when the little shallow-draught steamer transferred Old Man Gordon’s “b’iler,” to a waiting flat boat at Bettles, all Nolan turned out and man-hauled the ponderous piece of freight up a hundred miles of shallow water and set it in place on the Gordon claim.