"Finally we came to a rill where I urged her to rest; and when I had spread my blanket on a boulder, she took the seat, leaning comfortably against a higher rock, and watched me while I opened the tin box in which Sandy had stored my lunch. She told me my cook made a good sandwich and knew how to fry a bird Southern fashion. Then she spoke of the Virginia town where she had lived before her marriage. The trip west had been her wedding journey, and her husband, who was an architect, had intended to open an office in a new town on Puget Sound, but at Seattle he caught the Alaska fever. "'The future looked very certain and brilliant then,' she said, with her smile, 'but as long as I have my husband, nothing else counts. I could live out my life, be happy here in this wilderness, anywhere, with him. If I could only have him back--as he used to be.'" Tisdale's voice softened, vibrating gently, so that the pathos of it all must have impressed the coldest listener. The woman beside him trembled and lifted her hand to her throat. "I can't remember all she told me," he went on, "but her husband had left her in Seattle when he started north, and the next season, when he failed to return for her, she had sailed to Seward in search of him. She had tried to influence him to give up the placer, when she saw the change in him; at least to go down to one of the coast towns and take up the work for which he had prepared, but he had delayed, with promises, until he was beyond listening to her. "'Of course he may stumble on riches any hour, as he believes,' she said finally, 'but not all the comforts or luxuries in the world are worth the price.' She did not break down, as she had in the cabin, but somehow I could hear the tears falling in her voice. I can yet, and see them big and shining deep in her eyes. "But she was off again, making up the delay, before I could fasten my pack, and when I overtook her in a level stretch and halted a moment to frolic with the dog, her face brightened. Then she spoke of a little trick she had taught him,--to go and meet his master and fetch his hat to her. Sometimes she had hidden it in shrubs, or among rocks, but invariably he had brought it home.