With the frozen desert all about them, under the chill northern skies, a vast stretch of somber gray, they plighted their troth. He had left the wilderness of mortar and steel with its lights and sights and tears and sneers to come to this land of night, with its cold and gold, to cut through the white for the yellow beneath. And the girl, brave in her hope that his would be realized, had come with him. His goal was gold; and he took the trail. For days he searched it, and found only despair, then broke his leg. An old Indian found him, alone and suffering, and took him to his hut. For days he nursed the injured limb, and for weeks the wanderer loitered in the camp of the Indian. Never a word reached the girl. Then she received a letter from home, advising her that she had inherited a large fortune.
