"I'm not sure I have legal grounds for a divorce. I'm not sure that I care to put the matter to a test--as yet."

"WHAT?" Pierce gazed at her, trying to understand. "Say that over again!"

"You think you've found yourself, but--have you? I know men pretty well and I think I know you. You've changed--yes, tremendously-- but what of a year, two years from now? You've barely tasted life and this is your first intoxication."

"Do you love me, or do you not?" he demanded.

"I love you as you are now. I may hate you as you will be to- morrow. I've had my growth; I've been through what you're just beginning--we can't change together."

"Then will you promise to marry me afterward?"

The Countess shook her head. "It's a promise that would hold only me. Why ask it?"

"You're thinking of no one but yourself," he protested, furiously.

"Think of me. I've given you all I have, all that's best and finest in me. I shall never love another woman--"

"Not in quite the way you love me, perhaps, but the peach ripens even after its bloom has been rubbed off. You HAVE given me what is best and finest, your first love, and I shall cherish it."

"Will you marry me?" he cried, hoa.r.s.ely. She made a silent refusal.

"Then I can put but one interpretation upon your actions."

"Don't be too hasty in your judgment. Can't you see? I was weak. I was tired. Then you came, like a draught of wine, and--I lost my head. But I've regained it. I dreamed my dream, but it's daylight now and I'm awake. I know that you believe me a heartless, selfish woman. Maybe I am, but I've tried to think for you, and to act on that good impulse. I tell you I would have been quite incapable of it before I knew you. A day, a month, a year of happiness! Most women of my age and experience would s.n.a.t.c.h at it, but I'm looking farther ahead than that. I can't afford another mistake. Life fits me, but you--why, you're bursting your seams."

"You've puzzled me with a lot of words," the young man said, with ever-growing resentment, "but what do they all amount to? You amused yourself with me and you're ready enough to continue so long as I pour my devotion at your feet. Well, I won't do it. If you loved me truly you wouldn't refuse to marry me. Isn't that so?

True love isn't afraid, it doesn't quibble and temporize and split hairs the way you do. No, it steps out boldly and follows the light. You've had your fun, you've--broken my heart." Phillips'

voice shook and he swallowed hard. "I'm through; I'm done. I shall never love another woman as I love you, but if what you said about that s.e.x-call is true, I--I'll play the game as you played it." He turned blindly and with lowered head plunged out of the tent into the night.

The Countess listened to the sounds of his departing footsteps; then, when they had ceased, she rose wearily and flung out her arms. There was a real and poignant distress in her eyes.

"Boy! Boy!" she whispered. "It was sweet, but--there had to be an end."

For a long time she stood staring at nothing; then she roused herself with a shiver, refilled the stove, and seated herself again, dropping her chin upon her knees as she did instinctively when in deep thought.

"If only I were sure," she kept repeating to herself. "But he has the call and--I'm too old."

CHAPTER XIII

Rouletta Kirby could not manage to get warm. The longer she sat beside the stove the colder she became. This was not strange, for the room was draughty, people were constantly coming in and going out, and when the door was opened the wind caused the canvas walls of the saloon to bulge and its roof to slap upon the rafters. The patrons were warmly clad in mackinaw, flannel, and fur. To them the place was comfortable enough, but to the girl who sat swathed in sodden undergarments it was like a refrigerator. More than once she regretted her heedless refusal of the Countess Courteau's offer of a change; several times, in fact, she was upon the point of returning to claim it, but she shrank from facing that wintry wind, so low had her vitality fallen. Then, too, she reasoned that it would be no easy task to find the Countess at this hour of the night, for the beach was lined with a mile of tents, all more or less alike. She pictured the search, herself groping her way from one to another, and mumbling excuses to surprised occupants. No, it was better to stay here beside the fire until her clothes dried out.

She would have reminded her father of her discomfort and claimed his a.s.sistance only for the certainty that he would send her off to bed, which was precisely what she sought to prevent. Her presence irritated him; nevertheless, she knew that his safety lay in her remaining. Sam Kirby sober was in many ways the best of fathers; he was generous, he was gentle, he was considerate. Sam Kirby drunk was another man entirely--a thoughtless, wilful, cruel man, subject to vagaries of temper that were as mysterious to the girl who knew him so well as they were dangerous to friend and foe alike. He was drunk now, or in that peculiar condition that pa.s.sed with him for drunkenness. Intoxication in his case was less a condition of body than a frame of mind, and it required no considerable amount of liquor to work the change. Whisky, even in small quant.i.ties, served to suspend certain of his mental functions; it paralyzed one lobe of his brain, as it were, while it aroused other faculties to a preternatural activity and awoke sleeping devils in him. The more he drank the more violent became his destructive mood, the more firmly rooted became his tendencies and proclivities for evil. The girl well knew that this was an hour when he needed careful watching and when to leave him unguarded, even temporarily, meant disaster. Rouletta clenched her chattering teeth and tried to ignore the chills that raced up and down her body.

White Horse, at this time, was purely a make-shift camp, hence it had no facilities for gambling. The saloons themselves were little more than liquor caches which had been opened overnight for the purpose of reaping quick profits; therefore such games of chance as went on were for the most part between professional gamblers who happened to be pa.s.sing through and who chose to amuse themselves in that way.

After perhaps an hour, during which a considerable crowd had come and gone, Sam Kirby broke away from the group with which he had been drinking and made for the door. As he pa.s.sed Rouletta he paused to say:

"I'm going to drift around a bit, kid, and see if I can't stir up a little game."

"Where are we going to put up for the night?" his daughter inquired.

"I don't know yet; it's early. Want to turn in?"

Rouletta shook her head.

"I'll find a place somewhere. Now you stick here where it's nice and warm. I'll be back by and by."

With sinking heart the girl watched him go. After a moment she rose and followed him out into the night. She was surprised to discover that the mud under foot had frozen and that the north wind bore a burden of fine, hard snow particles. Keeping well out of sight, she stumbled to another saloon door, and then, after shivering wretchedly outside for a while, she stole in and crept up behind the stove.

She was very miserable indeed by this time, and as the evening wore slowly on her misery increased. After a while her father began shaking dice with some strangers, and the size of their wagers drew an audience of interested bystanders.

Rouletta realized that she should not have exposed herself anew to the cold, for now her sensations had become vaguely alarming. She could not even begin to get warm, except now and then when a burning fever replaced her chill; she felt weak and ill inside; the fingers she pressed to her aching temples were like icicles.

Eventually--she had lost all track of time--her condition became intolerable and she decided to risk her father's displeasure by interrupting him and demanding that he secure for both of them a lodging-place at once.

There were several bank-notes of large denomination on the plank bar-top and Sam Kirby was watching a cast of dice when his daughter approached; therefore he did not see her. Nor did he turn his head when she laid a hand upon his arm.

Now women, especially pretty women, were common enough sights in Alaskan drinking-places. So it was not strange that Rouletta's presence had occasioned neither comment nor curiosity. More than once during the last hour or two men had spoken to her with easy familiarity, but they had taken no offense when she had turned her back. It was quite natural, therefore, that the fellow with whom Kirby was gambling should interpret her effort to claim attention as an attempt to interrupt the game, and that he should misread the meaning of her imploring look. There being considerable money at stake, he frowned down at her, then with an impatient gesture he brushed her aside.

"None of that, sister!" he warned her. "You get out of here."

Sam Kirby was in the midst of a discussion with the proprietor, across the bar, and because there was a deal of noise in the place he did not hear his daughter's low-spoken protest.

"Oh, I mean it!" The former speaker scowled at Rouletta. "You dolls make me sick, grabbing at every nickel you see. Beat it, now! There's plenty of young suckers for you to trim. If you can't respect an old man with gray hair, why--" The rest of his remark caused the girl's eyes to widen and the chattering voices to fall silent.

Sam Kirby turned, the dice-box poised in his right hand.

"Eh? What's that?" he queried, vaguely.

"I'm talking to this pink-faced gold-digger--"

"Father!" Rouletta exclaimed.

"I'm just telling her--"

The fellow repeated his remark, whereupon understanding came to Kirby and his expression slowly altered. Surprise, incredulity, gave place to rage; his eyes began to blaze.

"You said that to--her?" he gasped, in amazement. "To my kid?"

There was a moment of tense silence during which the speaker appeared to be numbed by the insult, then, "By G.o.d!" Sam placed the dice-box carefully upon the bar. His movement was deliberate, but he kept his flaming gaze fixed upon the object of his wrath, and into his lean, ashen countenance came such demoniac fury as to appal those who saw it.

Rouletta uttered a faint moan and flung herself at her father; with a strength born of terror she clung to his right wrist. In this she was successful, despite old Sam's effort to shake her off, but she could not imprison both his arms. Kirby stepped forward, dragging the girl with him; he raised that wicked artificial left hand and brought it sweeping downward, and for a second time that day the steel shaft met flesh and bone. His victim spun upon his heels, then, with outflung arms and an expression of shocked amazement still upon his face, he crashed backward to the floor.

Kirby strode to him; before other hands could come to Rouletta's a.s.sistance and bear him out of reach he twice buried his heavy hobnailed boot in the prostrate figure. He presented a terrible exhibition of animal ferocity, for he was growling oaths deep in his throat and in his eyes was the light of murder. He fought for liberty with which to finish his task, and those who restrained him found that somehow he had managed to draw an ivory-handled six-shooter from some place of concealment. Nor could they wrench the weapon away from him.

"He insulted my kid--my girl Letty!" Kirby muttered, hoa.r.s.ely.

When the fallen man had been lifted to his feet and hurried out of the saloon old Sam tried his best to follow, but his captors held him fast. They pleaded with him, they argued, they pacified him as well as they could. It was a long time, however, before they dared trust him alone with Rouletta, and even then they turned watchful eyes in his direction.