"That wouldn't do any good," said she. "We'd better leave things as they are." Then she drew away and smiled at him bravely from the door.

"I'm a very bad to act this way. S'cuses?"

He nodded and she went out, but he gazed after her for a long minute, then sighed.

"Poor little girl!"

Necia was in a restless mood, and, remembering that Alluna and the children had gone berrying on the slopes behind the Indian village, she turned her way thither. All at once a fear of seeing Meade Burrell came upon her. She wanted to think this out, to find where she stood, before he had word with her. She had been led to observe herself from a strange angle, and must verify her vision, as it were. As yet she could not fully understand. What if he had changed, now that he was alone, and had had time to think? It would kill her if she saw any difference in him, and she knew she would be able to read it in his eyes.

As she went through the main street of the camp she saw Stark occupied near the water-front, where he had bought a building lot. He spoke to her as she was about to pa.s.s.

"Good-morning, Miss. Are you rested from your trip?"

She answered that she was, and would have continued on her way, but he stopped her.

"I don't want you to think that mining matter was my doing," he said.

"I've got nothing against you. Your old man hasn't wasted any affection on me, and I can get along without him, all right, but I don't make trouble for girls if I can help it."

The girl believed that he meant what he said; his words rang true, and he spoke seriously. Moreover, Stark was known already in the camp as a man who did not go out of his way to make friends or to render an accounting of his deeds, so it was natural that when he made her a show of kindness Necia should treat him with less coldness than might have been expected. The man had exercised an occult influence upon her from the time she first saw him at Lee's cabin, but it was too vague for definite feeling, and she had been too strongly swayed by Poleon and her father in their att.i.tude towards him to be conscious of it. Finding him now, however, in a gentle humor, she was drawn to him unwittingly, and felt an overweening desire to talk with him, even at the hazard of offending her own people. The encounter fitted in with her rebellious mood, for there were things she wished to know, things she must find out from some one who knew the world and would not be afraid to answer her questions candidly.

"I'm going to build a big dance-hall and saloon here," said Stark, showing her the stakes that he had driven. "As soon as the rush to the creek is over I'll hire a gang of men to get out a lot of house logs.

I'll finish it in a week and be open for the stampede."

"Do you think this will be a big town?" she asked.

"n.o.body can tell, but I'll take a chance. If it proves to be a false alarm I'll move on--I've done it before."

"You've been in a great many camps, I suppose."

He said that he had, that for twenty years he had been on the frontier, and knew it from West Texas to the Circle.

"And are they all alike?"

"Very much. The land lies different but the people are the same."

"I've never known anything except this." She swept the points of the compa.s.s with her arm. "And there is so much beyond that I want to know about--oh, I feel so ignorant! There is something now that perhaps you could tell me, you have travelled so much."

"Let's have it," said he, smiling at her seriousness.

She hesitated, at a loss for words, finally blurting out what was in her mind.

"My father is a squaw-man, Mr. Stark, and I've been raised to think that such things are customary."

"They are, in all new countries," he a.s.sured her.

"But how are they regarded when civilization comes along?"

"Well, they aren't regarded, as a rule. Squaw-men are pretty shiftless, and people don't pay much attention to them. I guess if they weren't they wouldn't be squaw-men."

"My father isn't shiftless," she challenged, at which he remained silent, refusing to go on record. "Isn't a half-breed just as good as a white?"

"Look here," said he. "What are you driving at?"

"I'm a 'blood,'" she declared, recklessly, "and I want to know what people think of me. The men around here have never made me feel conscious of it, but--"

"You're afraid of these new people who are coming, eh? Well, don't worry about that, Miss. It wouldn't make any difference to me or to any of your friends whether you were red, white, black, or yellow."

"But it would make a difference with some people?" insisted the girl.

"Oh, I reckon it would with Eastern people. They look at things kind of funny, but we're not in the East."

"That's what I wanted to know. Nice people back there wouldn't tolerate a girl like me for a moment, would they? They wouldn't consider me good enough to a.s.sociate with them?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I guess you'd have a hard time breaking in among the 'bon-tonners.' But what's the use of thinking about it. This is your country and these are your people."

A morbid desire was upon her to track down this intangible racial distinction, but she saw Runnion, whom she could not bear, coming towards them, so thanked Stark hurriedly and went on her way.

"Been making friends with that squaw, eh?" remarked Runnion, casually.

"Yes," replied Stark. "She's a nice little girl, and I like her. I told her I didn't have any part in that miners' meeting affair."

"Huh! What's the matter with you? It was all your doing."

"I know it was, but I didn't aim it at her. I wanted that ground next to Lee's, and I wanted to throw a jolt into Old Man Gale. I couldn't let the girl stand in my way; but now that it's over, I'm willing to be friends with her."

"Me, too," said Runnion, looking after Necia as her figure diminished up the street. "By Heaven! She's as graceful as a fawn; she's white, too. n.o.body would ever know she was a breed."

"She's a good girl," said Stark, musingly, in a gentle tone that Runnion had never heard before.

"Getting kind of mushy, ain't you? I thought you had pa.s.sed that stage, old man."

"No, I don't like her in that way."

"Well, I do, and I'm dead sore on that soldier."

"She's not your kind," said Stark. "A bad man can't hold a good woman; he can win one easy enough, but he can't keep her. I know!"

"n.o.body but a fool would want to keep one," Runnion replied, "specially a squaw."

"She's just woke up to the fact that she is a squaw and isn't as good as white. She's worried."

"I'll lay you a little eight to five that Burrell has thrown her down,"

chuckled Runnion.

"I never thought of that. You may be right."

"If it's true I'll shuffle up a hand for that soldier."

"If I were you I wouldn't deal it to him," said the gambler, dryly. "He may not cut to your break."