It is a clever woman who can fill out the many weak places in an inefficient man, by her own indomitability re-enforce his vacillating nature, infuse her ambitious soul into his, and spur him on to great achievements. And it is indeed a very clever and tactful woman who can do all this, and do it so subtly that the man receives all the credit and believes in his inmost heart that everything is due to him and him alone.

This is what Grace Bentham proceeded to do. Arriving in Dawson with a few pounds of flour and several letters of introduction, she at once applied herself to the task of pushing her big baby to the fore. It was she who melted the stony heart and wrung credit from the rude barbarian who presided over the destiny of the P. C. Company; yet it was Edwin Bentham to whom the concession was ostensibly granted. It was she who dragged her baby up and down creeks, over benches and divides, and on a dozen wild stampedes; yet everybody remarked what an energetic fellow that Bentham was. It was she who studied maps, and catechised miners, and hammered geog

raphy and locations into his hollow head, till everybody marveled at his broad grasp of the country and knowledge of its conditions. Of course, they said the wife was a brick, and only a few wise ones appreci ated and pitied the brave little woman. She did the work; he got the credit and reward. In the Northwest Territory a married woman cannot stake or record a creek, bench, or quartz claim; so Edwin Bentham went down to the Gold Commissioner and filed on Bench Claim 23, second tier, of French Hill. And when April came they were washing out a thousand dollars a day, with many, many such days in prospect.

At the base of French Hill lay Eldorado Creek, and on a creek claim stood the cabin of Clyde Wharton. At present he was not washing out a diurnal thousand dollars; but his dumps grew, shift by shift, and there would come a time when those dumps would pass through his sluice-boxes, depositing in the riffles, in the course of half a dozen days, several hundred thousand dollars. He often sat in that cabin, smoked his pipe, and dreamed beautiful little dreams,-dreams in which neither the dumps nor the half-ton of dust in the P. C. Company's big safe, played a part.

And Grace Bentham, as she washed tin dishes in her hillside cabin, often glanced down into Eldorado Creek, and dreamed, -not of dumps nor dust, however. They met frequently, as the trail to the one claim crossed the other, and there is much to talk about in the Northland spring; but never once, by the light of an eye nor the slip of a tongue, did they speak their hearts.

This is as it was at first. But one day Edwin Bentham was brutal. All boys are thus; besides, being a French Hill king now, he began to think a great deal of himself and to forget all he owed to his wife. On this day, Wharton heard of it, and waylaid Grace Bentham, and talked wildly. This made her very happy, though she would not listen, and made him promise to not say such things again. Her hour had not come.

But the sun swept back on its northern journey, the black of midnight changed to the steely color of dawn, the snow slipped

away, the water dashed again over the glacial drift, and the wash-up began. Day and night the yellow clay and scraped bedrock hurried through the swift sluices, yielding up its ransom to the strong men from the Southland. And in that time of tumult came Grace Bentham's hour.

To all of us such hours at some time come, that is, to us who are not too phlegmatic. Some people are good, not from inherent love of virtue, but from sheer laziness. But those of us who know weak moments may understand.

Edwin Bentham was weighing dust over the bar of the saloon at the Forks-altogether too much of his dust went over that pine board-when his wife came down the hill and slipped into Clyde Wharton's cabin. Wharton was not expecting her, but that did not alter the case.

And

much subsequent misery and idle waiting might have been avoided, had not Father Roubeau seen this and turned aside from the main creek trail.

66

My child,-"

Hold on, Father Roubeau! Though I'm not of your faith, I respect you; but you can't come in between this woman and me!"

"You know what you are doing?"

"Know! Were you God Almighty, ready to fling me into eternal fire, I'd bank my will against yours in this matter."

Wharton had placed Grace on a stool and stood belligerently before her.

"You sit down on that chair and keep quiet," he continued, addressing the Jesuit. "I'll take my innings now. You can have yours after."

Father Roubeau bowed courteously and obeyed. He was an easy-going man and had learned to bide his time. Wharton pulled a stool alongside the woman's, smothering her hand in his.

"Then you do care for me, and will take me away?" Her face seemed to reflect the peace of this man, against whom she might draw close for shelter.

"Dear, don't you remember what I said before? Of course I-"

"But how can you?-the wash-up?" "Do you think that worries? Anyway, I'll give the job to Father Roubeau, here. I can trust him to safely bank the dust. with the company."

"And the Sixty-Mile River; then the lakes, Chilcoot, Dyea, and Salt Water." But, dear, I can't pole a boat."

"You little goose! I'll get Sitka Charley; he knows all the good water and best camps, and he is the best traveler I ever met, if he is an Indian. All you'll have to do, is to sit in the middle of the boat, and sing songs, and play Cleopatra, and fight—no, we're in luck; too early for mosquitoes."

And then, O my Antony?"

"And then a steamer, San Francisco, and the world! Never to come back to this cursed hole again. Think of it! The world, and ours to choose from! I'll sell out. Why, we're rich! The Waldworth

Syndicate will give me half a million for what's left in the ground, and I've got twice as much in the dumps and with the P. C. Company. We'll go to the Fair in Paris in 1900. We'll go to Jerusalem, if you say so. We'll buy an Italian palace, and you can play Cleopatra to your heart's content. No, you shall be Lucretia, Acte, or anybody your little heart sees fit to become. But you must n't, you really must n't-"

"The wife of Cæsar shall be above reproach."

"Of course, but—”

"And now, little sweetheart, you're not to bother about such things any more. Of course, I never, never will, and—”

And for the first time, lips trembled against lips. Father Roubeau had been watching the main trail through the window, but could stand the strain no longer. He cleared his throat and turned around.

"Your turn now, Father!" Wharton's face was flushed with the fire of his first embrace. There was an exultant ring to his voice as he abdicated in the other's favor. He had no doubt as to the result. Neither had Grace, for a smile played about her mouth as she faced the priest. "My child," he began, my heart bleeds for you. It is a pretty dream, but it cannot be."

"And why, Father? I have said yes." "You knew not what you did. You did not think of the oath you took, before your

"Which God? My husband has a God which I care not to worship. There must be many such."

"Child! unsay those words! Ah! you do not mean them. I understand. I, too, have had such moments." For an instant he was back in his native France, and a wistful, sad-eyed face came as a mist between him and the woman before him.

"Then, Father, has my God forsaken. me? I am not wicked above women. My misery with him has been great. Why should it be greater? Why shall I no grasp at happiness? I cannot, will not, go back to him!"

"Rather is your God forsaken. Return. Throw your burden upon Him, and the darkness shall be lifted. O my child,-"

"No; it is useless; I have made my bed and so shall I lie. I will go on. And if God punishes me, I shall bear it somehow. You do not understand. You are not a woman."

her fresh young face, hold her hand in yours, or touch your cheek to hers?"

To his words, her brain formed vivid images, till she cried out, "Don't! don't!" and shrank away as do the wolfdogs from the lash.

"But you must face all this; and better it is to do it now."

In his eyes, which she could not see, there was a great compassion, but his face, tense and quivering, showed no relenting. She raised her head from the table, forced back the tears, struggled for control.

"I shall go away. They will never see me, and come to forget me. I shall be to them as dead. And-and I will go with Clyde-to-day."

It seemed final. Wharton stepped forward, but the priest waved him back. "You have wished for children?" A silent "Yes."

"And prayed for them?"

"Often."

"Can you picture an innocent babe in your arms? A boy? The world is not so hard upon a girl. Why, your very breast would turn to gall! And you could be proud and happy of your boy, as you looked on other children ?-"

"O, have pity! Hush!"

"A scapegoat-"

"After all this? You cannot! I will not let you!"

"Don't touch me!" She shivered and drew back.

"I will! You are mine! Do you hear? You are mine!" Then he whirled upon the priest. O what a fool I was to ever let you wag your silly tongue! Thank your God you are not a common man, for I'd but the priestly prerogative must be exercised, eh? Well, you have exercised it. Now get out of my house, or I'll forget who and what you are!"

Father Roubeau bowed, took her hand, and started for the door. But Wharton cut them off.

"Grace! You said you loved me?
"I did."

And you do now?"

"I do."

Say it again."

"I do love you, Clyde; I do."

"There, you priest!" he cried. "You have heard it, and with those words on her lips you would send her back to live a lie and a hell with that man?"

But Father Roubeau whisked the woman into the inner room and closed the door. "No words!" he whispered to Wharton, as he struck a casual posture on a stool. "Remember, for her sake," he added.

The room echoed to a rough knock at the door; then the latch raised and Edwin Bentham stepped in.

"Seen anything of my wife?" he asked, as soon as salutations had been exchanged. Two heads nodded negatively.

"I saw her tracks down from the cabin," he continued tentatively,

"and

main trail."

His listeners looked bored.
"And I-I thought—”

She was here!" thundered Wharton. The priest silenced him with a look. "Did you see her tracks leading up to this cabin, my son?" Wily Father Roubeau

he had taken good care to obliterate them as he came up the same path an hour before.

"I did n't stop to look, I-" His eyes rested suspiciously on the door to the other room, then interrogated the priest. The latter shook his head; but the doubt seemed to linger.

Father Roubeau breathed a swift, silent prayer, and rose to his feet. "If you doubt me, why-" He made as though to open the door.

A priest could not lie. Edwin Bentham had heard this often, and believed it. "Of course not, Father," he interposed hurriedly. "I was only wondering where my wife had gone, and thought maybe-I guess she's up at Mrs. Stanton's on French Gulch. Nice weather, is n't it? Heard the news? Flour's gone down to forty dollars a hundred, and they say the che-cha-quas are flocking down the river in droves. But I must be going; so goodbv."

The door slammed, and from the window they watched him take his quest up French Gulch.

A few weeks later, just after the June. high-water, two men shot a canoe into mid-stream and made fast to a derelict pine. This tightened the painter and jerked the frail craft along as would a tow-boat. Father Roubeau had been directed to leave the Upper Country and return to his swarthy children at Minook. The white men had come among them, and they were devoting too little time to fishing, and too much to a certain deity whose transient habitat was in countless black bottles. Malemute Kid also had business in the Lower Country, so they journeyed together.

But one, in all the Northland, knew the man Paul Roubeau, and that man was Malemute Kid. Before him alone did the priest cast off the sacerdotal garb and

stand naked. And why not? These two men knew each other. Had they not shared the last morsel of fish, the last pinch of tobacco, the last and inmost thought, on the barren stretches of Bering Sea, in the heart-breaking mazes of the Great Delta, on the terrible winter journey from Point Barrow to the Porcupine?

Father Roubeau puffed heavily at his trail-worn pipe, and gazed on the reddisked sun, poised somberly on the edge of the northern horizon. Malemute Kid wound up his watch. It was midnight.

"Cheer up, old man!" The Kid was evidently gathering up a broken thread. "God surely will forgive such a lie. Let me give you the word of a man who strikes a true note:

If She have spoken a word, remember thy lips are sealed,

And the brand of the Dog is upon him by whom is the secret revealed.

If there be trouble to Herward, and a lie of the blackest can clear,

Lie, while thy lips can move or a man is alive to hear."

Father Roubeau removed his pipe and reflected. "The man speaks true, but my soul is not vexed with that. The lie and the penance stand with God; but-but-"

"What then? Your hands are clean." "Not so. Kid, I have thought much, and yet the thing remains. I knew, and I made her go back."

The clear note of a robin rang out from the wooded bank, a partridge drummed the call in the distance, a moose lunged noisily in the eddy; but the twain smoked on in silence.

"D

VOL. XXXIV - 5

Ella M. Sexton.