Best was genuinely glad to see his former employee; he warmly shook Pierce's hand,

"I've got 'em going, haven't I?" he chuckled.

Laure broke out, imperiously: "Loosen up. Morris, and let's all have a drink on the house. You can afford it."

"Sure!" With a happy grin the proprietor ordered a quart bottle of wine. "I can afford more than that for a friend. We put it over, didn't we, kid?" He linked arms with Pierce and leaned upon him.

"Oy! Such trouble we had with these girls, eh? But we got 'em here, and now I got Dawson going. I'll be one of these Rockyfeller magnets, believe me."

Pierce had not tasted liquor since his last farewell to Laure.

Three weeks of hard work in the open air had effected a chemical change in his make-up, a purification of his tissues, and as a result Best's liquor mounted quickly to his head and warmed his blood. When he had emptied his gla.s.s Laure saw that it was promptly refilled.

"So you've cut out the stampeding," Morris continued. "Good!

You've got sense. Let the rough-necks do it. This here Front Street is the best pay-streak in the Klondike and it won't pinch out. Why? Because every miner empties his poke into it." The speaker nodded, and leaned more intimately against Phillips. "They bring in their Bonanza dust and their El Dorado nuggets and salt our sluices. That's the system. It's simpler as falling down a log. What?"

"Come to the good news," Laure urged.

"This little woman hates you, don't she?" Best winked. "Just like she hates her right eye. You got her going, kid. Well, you can start work to-morrow."

"Start work? Where?" Pierce was bewildered.

"Miller's looking for a gold-weigher. We'll put you out in the saloon proper."

"'Saloon proper'?" Pierce shook his head in good-natured refusal.

"I dare say it's the fault of my bringing-up, but--I don't think there's any such thing. I'm an outdoor person. I'm one of the rough-necks who salts your sluice-boxes. I think I'd better stick to the hills. It's mighty nice of you, though, and I'm much obliged."

"Are you going to take that other offer?" Laure inquired. When Pierce hesitated she laid hold of his other arm. "I won't let you go," she cried. "I want you here--"

"Nonsense!" he protested. "I can't do anything for you. I have nothing--"

"Have I ever asked you for anything?" she blazed at him. "I can take care of myself, but--I want you. I sha'n't let you go."

"Better think it over," Best declared. "We need a good man."

"Yes!" Laure clung to Pierce's hand. "Don't be in a hurry. Anyhow, stay and dance with me while we talk about it. We've never had a dance together. Please!"

The proprietor of the theater was in a genial mood. "Stick around," he seconded. "Your credit is good and it won't worry me none if you never take up your tabs. Laure has got the right idea; play 'em safe and sure, and let the other feller do the work. Now we'll have another bottle."

The three of them were still standing at the bar when the curtain fell on the last vaudeville act and the audience swarmed out into the gambling-room of the main saloon. Hastily, noisily, the chairs were removed from the dance floor, then the orchestra began a spirited two-step and a raucous-voiced caller broke into loud exhortations. In a twinkling the room had refilled, this time with whirling couples.

Laure raised her arms, she swayed forward into Pierce's embrace, and they melted into the throng. The girl could dance; she seemed to float in cadence with the music; she became one with her partner and answered his every impulse. Never before had she seemed so utterly and so completely to embody the spirit of pleasure; she was ardent, alive, she pulsated with enjoyment; her breath was warm, her dark, fragrant hair brushed Phillips' cheek; her olive face was slightly flushed; and her eyes, uplifted to his, were glowing. They voiced adoration, abandon, surrender.

The music ended with a crash; a shout, a storm of applause followed; then the dancers swarmed to the bar, bearing Pierce and his companion with them. Laure was panting. She clung fiercely, jealously, to Phillips' arm.

"Dance with me again. Again! I never knew what it was--" She trembled with a vibrant ecstasy.

Drinks were set before them. The girl spurned hers, but absent- mindedly pocketed the pasteboard check that went with it. While yet Pierce's throat was warm from the spirits there began the opening measures of a languorous waltz and the crowd swept into motion again. There was no refusing the invitation of that music.

Later in the evening Phillips found Tom and Jerry; his color was deeper than usual, his eyes were unnaturally bright.

"I'm obliged to you," he told them, "but I've taken a job as weigher with Miller & Best. Good luck, and--I hope you strike it rich."

When he had gone Tom shook his head. His face was clouded with regret and, too, with a vague expression of surprise.

"Too bad," he said. "I didn't think he was that kind."

"Sure!" Jerry agreed. "I thought he'd make good."

CHAPTER XX

Morris Best's new partner was a square gambler, so called. People there were who sneered at this description and considered it a contradiction as absurd as a square circle or an elliptical cube.

An elementary knowledge of the principles of geometry and of the retail liquor business proved the non-existence of such a thing as a straight crook, so they maintained. But be that as it may, Ben Miller certainly differed from the usual run of sporting-men, and he professed peculiar ideas regarding the conduct of his trade.

Those ideas were almost puritanical in their nature.

Proprietorship of recreation centers similar to the Rialto had bred in Mr. Miller a profound distrust of women as a s.e.x and of his own ability successfully to deal with them; in consequence, he refused to tolerate their presence in his immediate vicinity. That they were valuable, nay, necessary, ingredients in the success of an enterprise such as the present one he well knew--Miller was, above all, a business man--but in making his deal with Best he had insisted positively that none of the latter's song-birds were ever to enter the front saloon. That room, Miller maintained, was to be his own, and he proposed to exercise dominion over it. As for the gambling-hall, that of necessity was neutral territory and be reluctantly consented to permit the girls to patronize it so long as they behaved themselves. For his part, he yielded all responsibility over the theater, and what went on therein, to Best. He agreed to stay out of it.

This division of power worked admirably, and Miller's prohibitions were scrupulously observed. He was angered, therefore, when, one morning, his rule was broken. At the moment he was engaged in weighing, checking up, and sacking his previous night's receipts, he looked up with a frown when a woman's--a girl's--voice interrupted him.

"Are you Ben Miller?" the trespa.s.ser inquired.

Miller nodded shortly. He could be colder than a frog when he chose.

"I'm looking for work," explained the visitor.

"You got the wrong door," he told her. "You want the dance-hall.

We don't allow women in here."

"So I understand."

Miller's frown deepened. "Well, then, beat it! Saloons are masculine gender and--"

"I'm not a dance-hall girl, I'm a dealer," the other broke in.

"You're a--WHAT?" Ben's jaw dropped; he stared curiously at the speaker. She was pretty, very pretty, in a still, dignified way; she had a fine, intelligent face and she possessed a poise, a carriage, that challenged attention.

"A dealer? What the deuce can you deal?" he managed to ask.

"Anything--the bank, the wheel, the tub, the cage--"

Disapproval returned to the man's countenance; there was an admonitory sternness to his voice when he said: "It ain't very nice to see a kid like you in a place like this. I don't know where you learned that wise talk, but--cut it out. Go home and behave yourself, sister. If you're broke, I'll stake you; so'll anybody, for that matter."

His visitor stirred impatiently. "Let's stick to business. I don't want a loan. I'm a dealer and I want work."

Morris Best bustled out of the adjoining room at the moment, and, noting a feminine figure in this forbidden territory, he exclaimed:

"Hey, miss! Theater's in the rear."