and watch
my smoke, and when you see it risin', you'll know, too."

Matt McCarthy came in over the ice Christmas week, summed up the
situation so far as Frona and St. Vincent were concerned, and did not
like it. Dave Harney furnished him with full information, to which he
added that obtained from Lucile, with whom he was on good terms.
Perhaps it was because he received the full benefit of the sum of their
prejudice; but no matter how, he at any rate answered roll-call with
those who looked upon the correspondent with disfavor. It was
impossible for them to tell why they did not approve of the man, but
somehow St. Vincent was never much of a success with men. This, in
turn, might have been due to the fact that he shone so resplendently
with women as to cast his fellows in eclipse; for otherwise, in his
intercourse with men, he was all that a man could wish. There was
nothing domineering or over-riding about him, while he manifested a
good fellowship at least equal to their own.

Yet, having withheld his judgment after listening to Lucile and Harney,
Matt McCarthy speedily reached a verdict upon spending an hour with St.
Vincent at Jacob Welse's,--and this in face of the fact that what
Lucile had said had been invalidated by Matt's learning of her intimacy
with the man in question. Strong of friendship, quick of heart and
hand, Matt did not let the grass grow under his feet. "'Tis I'll be
takin' a social fling meself, as befits a mimber iv the noble Eldorado
Dynasty," he explained, and went up the hill to a whist party in Dave
Harney's cabin. To himself he added, "An' belike, if Satan takes his
eye off his own, I'll put it to that young cub iv his."

But more than once during the evening he discovered himself challenging
his own judgment. Probe as he would with his innocent wit, Matt found
himself baffled. St. Vincent certainly rang true. Simple,
light-hearted, unaffected, joking and being joked in all good-nature,
thoroughly democratic. Matt failed to catch the faintest echo of
insincerity.

"May the dogs walk on me grave," he communed with himself while
studying a hand which suffered from a plethora of trumps. "Is it the
years are tellin', puttin' the frost in me veins and chillin' the
blood? A likely lad, an' is it for me to misjudge because his is
a-takin' way with the ladies? Just because the swate creatures smile
on the lad an' flutter warm at the sight iv him? Bright eyes and brave
men! 'Ti