the toughest there was in the
way of boardin'-houses; but rough house in 'Frisco itself is holiness
compared with what goes on there under the sign of Mrs. Jesse Smith.
That name ain't exactly clean."

"That's enough, I think, if you don't mind. I'd rather have news about
our old friends--Captain Taylor, for instance, and Iron Dale, and how is
dear Doctor McGee?"

"Dear Doctor McGee, is it? Well, you see he lived within a mile of
Polly. She got him drinkin', skinned him at cards, then told him he'd
best shoot himself. The snow drifts through his house.

"And Iron Dale? Oh, of course, he was Jesse's friend, too. I'd forgot.
She got him drunk and went through him. That money was for paying his
hands at the Sky-line--wasn't his to lose, so he skipped the country.
The mines closed down and there wasn't no more packing contracts for
Jesse."

I began to understand what Billy meant, and it was with sick fear I
asked concerning my dear man's stanchest friend, his banker, Captain
Boulton Taylor.

"You'd better know, mum." There was pain in the lad's face, reluctance
in his voice. "Being the nearest magistrate, he tried to down Polly for
keeping a disorderly house. But then, as old man Taylor owned, he didn't
know enough law to plug a rat hole. There ain't no municipality, so
Spite House is outside the law. But Polly's friends proved all the good
she done to men who was hurt, or sick, or broke. Then she showed up how
her store and hotel was cutting into the trade of Hundred Mile House.
She brung complaints before the government, so Taylor ain't magistrate
now. The stage stables got moved from Hundred Mile to Spite House. The
post-office had to follow. Now he's alone with only a Chinaman. He's
blind as a bat, too, and there's no two ways about it--Bolt Taylor's
dying."

"Is there no justice left?"

"Dunno about that. She _uses_ a lot of law."

I dared not ask about Jesse. To sit still was impossible, to play caged
tiger up and down the room would only be ridiculous. Still, Billy's
poisonous tobacco excused the opening of a window, so I stood with my
back turned, while a November night closed on the river and the misty
fields.

How could I leave my baby? How could I possibly break with Covent
Garden--where my understudy, a fearsome female, ravened for the part?
The cottage would never let before our river season. "Madame Scotson has
been called abroad on urgent private business."

"Of course," the lad was saying, "wh