John Thompson, the new agent, laughed; but Jees Uck had faith in
the mischances of sea and river. Neil Bonner might be frozen in
anywhere between Chilkoot Pass and St. Michael's, for the last
travellers of the year are always caught by the ice, when they
exchange boat for sled and dash on through the long hours behind
the flying dogs.
But no flying dogs came up the trail, nor down the trail, to Twenty
Mile. And John Thompson told Jees Uck, with a certain gladness ill
concealed, that Bonner would never come back again. Also, and
brutally, he suggested his own eligibility. Jees Uck laughed in
his face and went back to her grand log-house. But when midwinter
came, when hope dies down and life is at its lowest ebb, Jees Uck
found she had no credit at the store. This was Thompson's doing,
and he rubbed his hands, and walked up and down, and came to his
door and looked up at Jees Uck's house and waited. And he
continued to wait. She sold her dog-team to a party of miners and
paid cash for her food. And when Thompson refused to honour even
her coin, Toyaat Indians made her purchases, and sledded them up to
her house in the dark.
In February the first post came in over the ice, and John Thompson
read in the society column of a five-months-old paper of the
marriage of Neil Bonner and Kitty Sharon.
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