in these
flood times a dollar left unwatched on a certain stump up the mountain
side would cause a jug to appear mysteriously in its place.

But since there was no bar, the great room whose door opened directly
upon the porch had been commandeered as a wassailing hall. Here the
entering guest must run the gantlet of the rollicking horde before he
could attain the more peaceful harbor of his own quarters.

About a red hot stove hung a crew of as dirty and disorderly men as
ever came out of coal mine or lumber camp. Those who remained sober
remained also somewhat aloof against the walls and kept their mouths
shut. From the ceiling downward hung the thick, stale cloud of smoke
from many strong pipes and the rancid poison of air discharged from
many lungs had become a stench in the nostrils. Occasional figures
walked with an unsteady lurch, while through the whole chaotic
pandemonium others slept heavily in their chairs--or even on the floor.

But just before Alexander reached the porch and hesitated on the
threshold Jase Mallows had been there. Now he was gone but he had
first imparted the information that the "'he-woman' from ther head of
Shoulderblade branch" was coming hither. So it was likely that she
would have a noisy welcome. On the outskirts of the crowd sat a giant
who seemed a shade rougher of guise than those about him. When he
stood, this man topped six feet by as many inches. His shoulders had
such a spread that one thought of them as of an eagle's wings--from tip
to tip. His face, now bristling with dark stubble, was none the less
clear-chiseled and arrestingly featured. At first sight a stranger
would be apt to exclaim, "What a magnificent figure of a man he would
make, if he were only clean-shaven and well dressed." This fellow was
not drinking but looking on from a table at which no one ventured to
challenge his sole occupancy or his evident preference for his own
society.

A somewhat amused and indulgent gleam dwelt in his eye, tinged, it is
true, with a certain unveiled contempt--but it was not the disgust that
might have been expected in a sober man looking on at such a
loathsomeness of debauchery.

There were women present too,--coarse and vicious creatures who lacked
even the sort of tawdry finery that their sisters in western mining
camps affect. There was here no shimmer of even the slaziest satin.
In dress as in character they were drab.

So was the stage set when the door opene