"You lied to me."

Laure's lips parted slowly in a smile. "What did you expect? What would any girl do?" She laid a caressing hand upon his arm. "I don't care how much they make or how poor you are--"

Pierce disengaged her grasp. "I care!" he cried, roughly. "I've lost my big chance. They've made their piles and I'm--well, look at me."

"You blame me?"

He stared at her for a moment. "What's the difference whether I blame you or myself? I'm through. I've been through for some time, but--this is curtain."

"Pierce!"

Impatiently he flung her off and strode out of the theater.

Laure was staring blindly after him when Joe McCaskey spoke to her. "Have a dance?" he inquired.

She undertook to answer, but her lips refused to frame any words; silently she shook her head.

"What's the idea? A lovers' quarrel?" McCaskey eyed her curiously, then he chuckled mirthlessly. "You can come clean with me. I don't like him any better than you do."

"Mind your own business," stormed the girl in a sudden fury.

"That's what I'm doing, and minding it good. I've got a lot of business--with that rat." Joe's sinister black eyes held Laure's in spite of her effort to avoid them; it was plain that he wished to say more, but hesitated. "Maybe it would pay us to get acquainted," he finally suggested. "Frank and me and the Count are having a bottle of wine upstairs. Better join us."

"I will," said Laure, after a moment. Together they mounted the stairs to the gallery above.

CHAPTER XXIII

"Wal, w'at I tol' you?" 'Poleon Doret exclaimed, cheerfully. "Me, I'm cut off for poor man. If one dose El Dorado millionaire' give me his pay-dump, all de gold disappear biffore I get him in de sluice-box. Some people is born Jonah." Despite this melancholy announcement 'Poleon was far from depressed. On the contrary, he beamed like a boy and his eyes were sparkling with the joy of again beholding his "sister."

He had returned from the hills late this evening and now he had come to fetch Rouletta from her work. This was his first opportunity for a word with her alone.

The girl was not unmoved by his tale of blighted expectations; she refused, nevertheless, to accept it as conclusive. "Nonsense!" she said, briskly. "You know very well you haven't prospected your claim for what it's worth. You haven't had time."

"I don' got to prospec' him," 'Poleon a.s.serted. "Dat's good t'ing 'bout dat claim. Some Swede fellers above me cross-cut de whole dam' creek an' don' fin' so much as one color. Sapre! Dat's fonny creek. She 'ain't got no gravel." The speaker threw back his head and laughed heartily. "It's fac'! I'scover de only creek on all de Yukon wit'out gravel. Muck! Twenty feet of solid frozen muck! It's lucky I stake on soch b.u.m place, eh? S'pose all winter I dig an'

don' fin' 'im out?"

For a moment Rouletta remained silent; then she said, wearily:

"Everything is all wrong, all upside down, isn't it? The McCaskeys struck pay; so did Tom and Jerry. But you--why, in all your years in this country you've never found anything. Where's the justice-- "

"No, no! I fin' somet'ing more better as dem feller. I fin' a sister; I fin' you. By Gar! I don't trade you for t'ousan' pay- streak!" Lowering his voice, 'Poleon said, earnestly, "I don' know how much I love you, ma soeur, until I go 'way and t'ink 'bout it."

Rouletta smiled mistily and touched the big fellow's hand, whereupon he continued:

"All dese year I look in de mos' likely spot for gold, an' don'

fin' him. Wal, I mak' change. I don' look in no more creek-bottom; I'm goin' hit de high spot!"

Reproachfully the girl exclaimed, "You promised me to cut that out."

With a grin the woodsman rea.s.sured her: "No, no! I mean I'm goin'

dig on top de mountains."

"Not--really? Why, 'Poleon, gold is heavy! It sinks. It's deep down in the creek-beds."

"It sink, sure 'nough," he nodded, "but where it sink from, eh? I don' lak livin' in low place, anyhow--you don' see not'in'. Me, I mus' have good view."

"What are you driving at?"

"I tell you: long tam ago I know old miner. He's forever talk 'bout high bars, old reever-bed, an' soch t'ing. We call him 'High Bar.' He mak' fonny story 'bout reever dat used to was on top de mountain. By golly! I laugh at him! But w'at you t'ink? I'm crossin' dose hill 'bove El Dorado an' I see place where dose miner is shoot dry timber down into de gulch. Dose log have dug up de snow an' I fin'--what?" Impressively the speaker whispered one word, "GRAVEL!"

Much to his disappointment, Rouletta remained impa.s.sive in the face of this startling announcement. Vaguely she inquired: "What of it? There's gravel everywhere. What you want is gold--"

"Mon Dieu!" 'Poleon lifted his hands in despair. "You're worse as cheechako. Where gravel is dere you fin' gold, ain't you?"

"Why--not always."

With a shrug the woodsman agreed. "Of course, not always, but--"

"On top of a hill?"

"De tip top."

"How perfectly absurd! How could gold run uphill?"

"I don' know," the other confessed. "But, for dat matter, how she run downhill? She 'ain't got no legs. I s'pose de book hexplain it somehow. Wal! I stake two claim--one for you, one for me. It's dandy place for cabin! You look forty mile from dat spot. Mak' you feel jus' lak bird on top of high tree. Dere's plenty dry wood, too, an' down below is de Forks--nice town wit' saloon an' eatin'- place. You can hear de choppin' an' de win'la.s.s creakin' and smell de smoke. It's fine place for singin' songs up dere."

"'Poleon!" Rouletta tried to look her sternest. "You're a great, overgrown boy. You can't stick to anything. You're merely lonesome and you want to get in where the people are."

"Lonesome! Don' I live lak bear when I'm trappin'? Some winter I don' see n.o.body in de least."

"Probably I made a mistake in bringing you down here to Dawson,"

the girl continued, meditatively. "You were doing well up the river, and you were happy. Here you spend your money; you gamble, you drink--the town is spoiling you just as it is spoiling the others."

"Um-m! Mebbe so," the man confessed. "Never I felt lak I do lately. If I don' come in town to-day I swell up an' bus'. I'm full of t'ing' I can't say."

"Go to work somewhere."

"For wages? Me?" Doret shook his head positively. "I try him once- -cookin' for gang of rough-neck'--but I mak' joke an' I'm fire'.

Dem feller kick 'bout my grub an' it mak' me mad, so one day I sharpen all de table-knife. I put keen edge on dem--lak razor."

The speaker showed his white teeth in a flashing smile. "Dat's meanes' trick ever I play. Sapre! Dem feller cut deir mouth so fast dey mos' die of bleedin'. No, I ain't hired man for n.o.body. I mus' be free."

"Very well," Rouletta sighed, resignedly, "I won't scold you, for- -I'm too glad to see you." Affectionately she squeezed his arm, whereupon he beamed again in the frankest delight. "Now, then, we'll have supper and you can take me home."

The Rialto was crowded with its usual midnight throng; there was the hubbub of loud voices and the ebb and flow of laughter. From midway of the gambling-hall rose the noisy exhortations of some amateur gamester who was breathing upon his dice and pleading earnestly, feelingly, with "Little Joe"; from the theater issued the strains of a sentimental ballad. As Rouletta and her companion edged their way toward the lunch-counter in the next room they were intercepted by the s...o...b..rd, whose nightly labors had also ended.