"Good morning!" Her face lit up with a smile; she extended her hand, and he seized it as a fish swallows a bait. He blushed redly. "I'm late," he stammered. "I mean I--I hurried right in to tell you--" "So they didn't hang you?" "No! You were wonderful! I couldn't rest until I had told you how deeply grateful--" "Nonsense!" The Countess shrugged her shoulders. "I'm glad you came before I left." "You're not--going away?" he queried, with frank apprehension. "In ten minutes." "See here!" It was the hotel proprietor who addressed the woman. "You can't possibly make it before snow flies, and the boats are overloaded coming north; they can't handle the freight they've got." "I'll be back in three weeks," the Countess asserted, positively. "I'll bring my own pack-train. If something should delay me, I'll open up here and put you out of business. This town will be good for a year or two." "You can't threaten me," the fellow blustered. "Twenty thousand is my price." "Good-by!" The Countess turned once more to Pierce. "Are you leaving for good?" he inquired, despondently, unable to dissemble. "Bless you, no! I'll probably die in this country. I'm going out on business, but I'll be back in Dawson ahead of the ice. You'll be going across soon, I dare say. Come, walk down to the beach with me." Together they left the building and found their way to the landing-place, where a lighter was taking on passengers for the steamship Queen. "I suppose you know how sorry I am for what happened yesterday," Pierce began. The Countess looked up from her abstracted contemplation of the scene; there was a faint inquiry in her face. "Sorry? I should think you'd be about the happiest boy in Dyea." "I mean what Jim McCaskey said. I'd have--killed him if I could. I tried to!" "Oh!" The woman nodded; her teeth gleamed in a smile that was not at all pleasant. "I heard about the shooting this morning; I meant to ask you about it, but I was thinking of other things." She measured the burly frame of the young man at her side and the vindictiveness died out of her expression. Phillips was good to look at; he stood a full six feet in height, his close-cropped hair displayed a shapely head, and his features were well molded. He was a handsome, open lad, the Countess acknowledged. Aloud she said: "I dare say every woman loves to have a man fight for her. I do my own fighting, usually, but it's nice to have a champion." Her gaze wandered back to the hotel, then up the pine-flanked valley toward the Chilkoot; her abstraction returned; she appeared to weigh some intricate mathematical calculation. With his hands in his pockets the hotel-keeper came idling down to the water's edge and, approaching his departing guest, said, carelessly: "I've been thinking it over, ma'am. There isn't room for two of us here. I might make it seventeen thousand five hundred, if--" "Fifteen! No more."