Was the old tragedy of it to be lived over again?
Was it again to play its part in a terrible drama of men's lives, as it had played it more than forty years ago?
The gold! The gold that for nearly half a century had lain with the bones of its dead, alone with its terrible secret, alone until Donald MacDonald had found it again! He had not told Joanne the story of it, the appalling and almost unbelievable tragedy of it.

He had meant to do so.

But they had talked of other things.

He had meant to tell her that it was not the gold itself that was luring him far to the north--that it was not the gold alone that was taking Donald MacDonald back to it.
And now, as he stood for a moment listening to the low sweep of the wind in the spruce-tops, it seemed to him that the night was filled with whispering voices of that long-ago--and he shivered, and held his breath.

A cloud had drifted under the moon.