Vance Corliss proceeded at a fair rate to adapt himself to the Northland life, and he found that many adjustments came easy. While his own tongue was alien to the brimstone of the Lord, he became quite used to strong language on the part of other men, even in the most genial² conversation. Carthey, a little Texan who went to work for him for a while, opened or closed every second sentence, on an average, with the mild expletive, "By damn!" It was also his invariable way of expressing surprise, disappointment, consternation³, or all the rest of the tribe of sudden emotions. By pitch and stress and intonation⁴, the protean⁵ oath was made to perform every function of ordinary speech. At first it was a constant source of irritation⁶ and disgust to Corliss, but erelong he grew not only to tolerate it, but to like it, and to wait for it eagerly. Once, Carthey's wheel-dog lost an ear in a hasty contention⁷ with a dog of the Hudson Bay, and when the young fellow bent⁸ over the animal and discovered the loss, the blended endearment⁹ and pathos¹⁰ of the "by damn" which fell from his lips was a relation to Corliss. All was not evil out of Nazareth, he concluded sagely¹¹, and, like Jacob Welse of old, revised his philosophy of life accordingly.  
Again, there were two sides to the social life of Dawson. Up at the Barracks, at the Welse's, and a few other places, all men of standing¹² were welcomed and made comfortable by the womenkind of like standing. There were teas, and dinners, and dances, and socials for charity, and the usual run of things; all of which, however, failed to wholly satisfy the men. Down in the town there was a totally different though equally popular other side. As the country was too young for club-life, the masculine portion of the community expressed its masculinity by herding¹³ together in the saloons,—the ministers and missionaries¹⁴ being the only exceptions to this mode of expression. Business appointments and deals were made and consummated¹⁵ in the saloons, enterprises projected, shop talked, the latest news discussed, and a general good fellowship maintained. There all life rubbed shoulders, and kings and dog-drivers, old-timers and chechaquos, met on a common level. And it so happened, probably because saw-mills and house-space were scarce, that the saloons accommodated the gambling¹⁶ tables and the polished dance-house floors. And here, because he needs must bend to custom, Corliss's adaptation went on rapidly. And as Carthey, who appreciated him, soliloquized, "The best of it is he likes it damn well, by damn!"
 
But any adjustment must have its painful periods, and while Corliss's general change went on smoothly¹⁷, in the particular case of Frona it was different. She had a code of her own, quite unlike that of the community, and perhaps believed woman might do things at which even the saloon-inhabiting males would be shocked. And because of this, she and Corliss had their first disagreeable disagreement.
 
Frona loved to run with the dogs through the biting frost, cheeks tingling¹⁸, blood bounding, body thrust forward, and limbs rising and falling ceaselessly to the pace. And one November day, with the first cold snap on and the spirit thermometer frigidly¹⁹ marking sixty-five below, she got out the sled, harnessed her team of huskies, and flew down the river trail. As soon as she cleared the town she was off and running. And in such manner, running and riding by turns, she swept through the Indian village below the bluff's, made an eight-mile circle up Moosehide Creek²⁰ and back, crossed the river on the ice, and several hours later came flying up the west bank of the Yukon opposite the town. She was aiming to tap and return by the trail for the wood-sleds which crossed thereabout, but a mile away from it she ran into the soft snow and brought the winded dogs to a walk.
 
Along the rim¹ of the river and under the frown of the overhanging cliffs, she directed the path she was breaking. Here and there she made detours²¹ to avoid the out-jutting talus, and at other times followed the ice in against the precipitous walls and hugged them closely around the abrupt²² bends. And so, at the head of her huskies, she came suddenly upon a woman sitting in the snow and gazing across the river at smoke-canopied Dawson. She had been crying, and this was sufficient to prevent Frona's scrutiny²³ from wandering farther. A tear, turned to a globule of ice, rested on her cheek, and her eyes were dim and moist; there was an-expression of hopeless, fathomless²⁴ woe²⁵.
 
"Oh!" Frona cried, stopping the dogs and coming up to her. "You are hurt? Can I help you?" she queried²⁶, though the stranger shook her head. "But you mustn't sit there. It is nearly seventy below, and you'll freeze in a few minutes. Your cheeks are bitten already." She rubbed the afflicted²⁷ parts vigorously with a mitten²⁸ of snow, and then looked down on the warm returning glow.
 
"I beg pardon." The woman rose somewhat stiffly to her feet. "And I thank you, but I am perfectly²⁹ warm, you see" (settling the fur cape³⁰ more closely about her with a snuggling movement), "and I had just sat down for the moment."
 
Frona noted³¹ that she was very beautiful, and her woman's eye roved over and took in the splendid furs, the make of the gown, and the bead-work of the moccasins which peeped from beneath. And in view of all this, and of the fact that the face was unfamiliar³², she felt an instinctive³³ desire to shrink back.
 
"And I haven't hurt myself," the woman went on. "Just a mood, that was all, looking out over the dreary³⁴ endless white."
 
"Yes," Frona replied, mastering herself; "I can understand. There must be much of sadness in such a landscape, only it never comes that way to me. The sombreness and the sternness of it appeal to me, but not the sadness."
 
"And that is because the lines of our lives have been laid in different places," the other ventured, reflectively. "It is not what the landscape is, but what we are. If we were not, the landscape would remain, but without human significance. That is what we invest it with.
 
  "'Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
  From outward things, whate'er you may believe.'"
Frona's eyes brightened, and she went on to complete the passage:
 
  "'There is an inmost centre in us all,
  Where truth abides³⁵ in fulness; and around.'
"And—and—how does it go? I have forgotten."
 
"'Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems³⁶ it in—'"
 
The woman ceased abruptly³⁷, her voice trilling off into silvery laughter with a certain bitter reckless ring to it which made Frona inwardly shiver. She moved as though to go back to her dogs, but the woman's hand went out in a familiar gesture,—twin to Frona's own,—which went at once to Frona's heart.
 
"Stay a moment," she said, with an undertone of pleading in the words, "and talk with me. It is long since I have met a woman"—she paused while her tongue wandered for the word—"who could quote 'Paracelsus.' You are,—I know you, you see,—you are Jacob Welse's daughter, Frona Welse, I believe."
 
Frona nodded her identity, hesitated, and looked at the woman with secret intentness. She was conscious of a great and pardonable curiosity, of a frank out-reaching for fuller knowledge. This creature, so like, so different; old as the oldest race, and young as the last rose-tinted babe; flung far as the farthermost fires of men, and eternal as humanity itself—where were they unlike, this woman and she? Her five senses told her not; by every law of life they were no; only, only by the fast-drawn lines of social caste and social wisdom were they not the same. So she thought, even as for one searching moment she studied the other's ............