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As Freda spoke she threw open the door. Into the warm room rushed
the frost, and on the threshold, garbed in trail-worn furs, knee-deep
in the swirling vapor, against a background of flaming
borealis, a woman hesitated. She removed her nose-trap and stood
blinking blindly in the white candlelight. Floyd Vanderlip
stumbled forward.
"Floyd!" she cried, relieved and glad, and met him with a tired
bound.
What could he but kiss the armful of furs? And a pretty armful it
was, nestling against him wearily, but happy.
"It was good of you," spoke the armful, "to send Mr. Devereaux
with fresh dogs after me, else I would not have been in till tomorrow."
The man looked blankly across at Freda, then the light breaking in
upon him, "And wasn't it good of Devereaux to go?"
"Couldn't wait a bit longer, could you, dear?" Flossie snuggled
closer.
"Well, I was getting sort of impatient," he confessed glibly, at
the same time drawing her up till her feet left the floor, and
getting outside the door.
That same night an inexplicable thing happened to the Reverend
James Brown, missionary, who lived among the natives several miles
down the Yukon and saw to it that the trails they trod led to the
white man's paradise. He was roused from his sleep by a strange
Indian, who gave into his charge not only the soul but the body of
a woman, and having done this drove quickly away. This woman was
heavy, and handsome, and angry, and in her wrath unclean words
fell from her mouth. This shocked the worthy man, but he was yet
young and her presence would have been pernicious (in the simple
eyes of his flock), had she not struck out on foot for Dawson with
the first gray of dawn.
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