O'Neil behaved more handsomely even than Eliza had anticipated. He hurried into town on the following morning, and his congratulations were so sincere, his manner so hearty that Dan forgot his embarrassment and took a shameless delight in advertising his happiness. Nor did Murray stop with mere words: he summoned all his lieutenants, and Omar rang that night with a celebration such as it had never before known. The company chef had been busy all day, the commissary had been ransacked, and the wedding-supper was of a nature to interfere with office duties for many days thereafter. Tom Slater made a congratulatory speech--in reality, a mournful adjuration to avoid the pitfalls of matrimonial inharmony--and openly confessed that his digestion was now impaired beyond relief. Others followed him; there was music, laughter, a riotous popping of corks; and over it all O'Neil presided with grace and mellowness. Then, after the two young people had been made thoroughly to feel his good will, he went back to the front, and Omar saw him but seldom in the weeks that followed. To romantic Eliza, this self-sought seclusion had but one meaning--the man was broken-hearted. She did not consider that there might be other reasons for his constant presence at the glaciers. Of course, since the unwelcome publication of the North Pass & Yukon story O'Neil had been in close touch with Illis, and by dint of strong argument had convinced the Englishman of his own innocence in the affair. A vigorous investigation might have proved disastrous, but, fortunately, Curtis Gordon lacked leisure in which to follow the matter up. The truth was that after his public exposure at Eliza's hands he was far too busy mending his own fences to spare time for attempts upon his rival. Consequently, the story was allowed to die out, and O'Neil was finally relieved to learn that its effect had been killed. Precisely how Illis had effected this he did not know, nor did he care to inquire. Illis had been forced into an iniquitous bargain; and, since he had taken the first chance to free himself from it, the question of abstract right or wrong was not a subject for squeamish consideration. It was at about this time that the sanguinary affray at Beaver Canon began to bear fruit. One day a keen-faced, quiet stranger presented a card at Murray's office, with the name: HENRY T. BLAINE. Beneath was the address of the Heidlemann building in New York, but otherwise the card told nothing. Something in Mr. Blaine's bearing, however, led Murray to treat him with more than ordinary consideration.