and Victoria--big, real
theaters, you know; and then others in the big mining camps. Oh, I just
dream over plays, when I do see them, specially when the actresses are
pretty. But I mostly like the villains better than the heroes. Don't know
why, but I do."

"What! you like to see their wickedness prosper?"

"No--I think not," she said, doubtfully. "But I tell you, the heroes are
generally just too good to be live men, that's all. And the villain mostly
talks more natural, gets mad, you know, and breaks things, and rides over
the lay-out as though he had some nerve in him. Of course, they always
make him throw up his hands in the end, and every man in the audience
applauds--even the ones who would act just as he does if such a pretty
hero was in their way."

"Well, you certainly have peculiar ideas of theatrical personages--for a
young lady," decided Lyster, laughing. "And why you have a grievance
against the orthodox handsome hero, I can't see."

"He's too good," she insisted, with the little frown appearing between her
brows, "and no one is ever started in the play with a fair chance against
him. He is always called Willie, where the villain would be called
Bill--now, isn't he? Then the girl in the story always falls in love with
him at first sight, and that's enough to rile any villain, especially when
he wants her himself."

"Oh!" and the face of the young man was a study, as he inspected this
wonderful ward of Dan. Whatever he had expected from the young swimmer of
the Kootenai, from the welcomed guest of Akkomi, he had not expected this
sort of thing.

She was twisting her pretty mouth, with a schoolgirl's earnestness, over a
problem, and accenting thus her patient forming of the clay face. She
built no barriers up between herself and this handsome stranger, as she
had in the beginning with Overton. What she had to say was uttered with
all freedom--her likes, her thoughts, her ambitions. At first the fineness
and perfection of his apparel had been as grandeur and insolence when
contrasted with her own weather-stained, coarse skirt of wool, and her
boy's blouse belted with a strap of leather. Even the blue beads--her one
feminine bit of adornment--had been stripped from her throat, that she
might give some pleasure to the little bronze-tinted runners on the shore.
But the gently modulated, sympathetic tones of Lyster and the kindly
fellowship in his eyes, when he looked at her, almost made her forget her
own