There they went, lickety-split, a swell turn-out, with Flora yelling at the driver to go faster, and about half a block behind poor old Kate, right in the middle of the street, on the car-track, in dinkey open-work silk stockings, with her shoes in one hand, going like a steam-engine. Her hat fell off as she crossed Polk Street, but Lord, she didn’t care, she had barrels of ’em at the hotel. I guess they had a clear street all the way. It must have taken the crowd like a circus parade. The police never caught on till they got to Kearney Street, and there I was standing, looking for my wife. A copper came out to nail her for a crazy woman, but I got there first, and bundled her into a hack. When we got up to our rooms she was so queer and strange that for a little while I didn’t know but she had gone nutty, after all. She never said a word till she had straightened up her dress and put on her shoes and got out a new hat. Then she stood in front of a big looking-glass. Finally she turned loose on me. “I want to be white and have a thin nose and a little waist like an American woman. Where can I get that? How many medicine stones will it take to make me white?” “Oh, Kate,” I said, “don’t talk like that, old girl. You are good enough for me. You can’t buy all that, anyway.” Then she said, “You don’t like me the way you like that other woman. How many medicine stones will it take to make me just as if I was white?” Of course I told her I was just as fond of her as ever, but she wouldn’t have it that way. She asked me again how much money it would take, and I had to tell her that the magic was no good for things like that. That seemed to kind of stun her, and she began to mope and pine. She went back into her room and puttered around some. I didn’t have the heart to follow her and see what she was up to. When she came out she had on her old loose dress and her moccasins. Over her head was the same shawl she wore when she came out of the Klondyke. “Give me my medicine stones,” she said to me. “I want all of them!” She seemed to feel so sore, I went out and drew two thousand dollars in twenties and brought ’em to her in two sacks. She didn’t need to tell me what was up. She was going back to her own country and her own people. She was singing the song of the tribe—“Death on the White Trail”—when I came in. I was going to stay in ’Frisco. That was what Kate wanted, and what Kate wants she gets, every time, if I have the say-so. It happened there was a steamer going next morning, and Kate didn’t leave her room nor speak to me till it was time to go down to the dock. I got her ticket and paid the purser to take good care of her. Even at the last we didn’t do much talking—what was the use? We both understood, and her people don’t waste words.