he turned to Tresler. "Ike,
here, don't run no boarders. Mebbe you'd best git around to my shack.
Sally'll fix you up with a blanket or two, an' the grub ain't bad. You
see, I run a boardin'-house fer the boys--leastways, Sally does."

And Tresler adopted the suggestion. He had no choice but to do so.
Anyway, he was quite satisfied with the arrangement. He had entered
the life of the prairie and was more than willing to adopt its ways
and its people.

And the recollection of that first night in Forks remained with him
when the memory of many subsequent nights had passed from him. It
stuck to him as only the first strong impressions of a new life can.

He met Sally Ranks--she was two sizes too large for the dining-room of
the boarding-house--who talked in a shrieking nasal manner that cut
the air like a knife, and who heaped the plates with coarse food that
it was well to have a good appetite to face. He dined for the first
time in his life at a table that had no cloth, and devoured his food
with the aid of a knife and fork that had never seen a burnish since
they had first entered the establishment, and drank boiled tea out of
a tin cup that had once been enameled. He was no longer John Tresler,
fresh from the New England States, but one of fourteen boarders, the
majority of whom doubled the necessary length of their sentences when
they conversed by reason of an extensive vocabulary of blasphemy, and
picked their teeth with their forks.

But it was pleasant to him. He was surrounded by something approaching
the natural man. Maybe they were drawn from the dregs of society, but
nevertheless they had forcibly established their right to live--a
feature that had lifted them from the ruck of thousands of law-abiding
citizens. He experienced a friendly feeling for these ruffians. More,
he had a certain respect for them.

After supper many of them drifted back to their recreation-ground, the
saloon. Tresler, although he had no inclination for drink, would have
done the same. He wished to see more of the people, to study them as a
man who wishes to prepare himself for a new part. But the quiet Slum
drew him back and talked gently to him; and he listened.

"Say, Tresler," the little man remarked offhandedly, "ther's three
fellers lookin' fer a gamble. Two of 'em ain't a deal at 'draw,' the
other's pretty neat. I tho't, mebbe, you'd notion a hand up here wi'
us. It's better'n loafin' down 't the saloon. We most gener'ly play