" shouted the bartender. "Don't you know the
wind is blowin' and lights will go out? Besides its deuced cold night,
and coal costs money, you know, Stella," added the fellow less savagely,
as, glancing quietly at him, and leading her boy, she slowly moved
toward the big coal stove.

"Let 'em warm themselves, can't you?" exclaimed one of the men sitting
at a table and shuffling cards for a game.

"Whose hinderin' 'em? I aint! All I'm objectin' to is the length of time
she held the door open when she came in."

"Wal, she's in now, and the door's shut, aint it?" drawled the card
player.

"Yes."

"Then close your gab!" and lowering his tone to his partner opposite he
said shortly, "Play, wont you?"

In the meantime Estella was warming herself beside the fire. On her
knees she held the boy whose head soon drooped drowsily in spite of his
hunger.

It was a long, bare room, newly boarded as to ceiling, flooring and
walls. A smooth and shining counter stretched along the west side of
the room, behind which stood rows of well filled bottles, ready to be
uncorked. For ornament, upon the opposite wall there hung a great
mirror, trying its best to duplicate the owner's stock in trade, as
though he would be needing such help before the winter was over, when
his whiskies were gone. For further brightening the room there hung
suspended from gilt buttons close below the ceiling, certain
representations of personages in garments too filmy to assure the
observer that they were intended for this Arctic world, because
rivalling the costumes of two solitary gardeners in the long ago.

However that may be, the pictures did not disturb Estella--as to the
miners they were accustomed to these and many other sights. Something
far worse to her troubled the Eskimo. It was hunger.

Suddenly one of the loungers, considerably younger that the others, said
to his neighbors:

"I'll bet she's hungry."

"Very likely, Sam, they mostly always are. There's nothin' here to eat
if she is, by George."

"There's plenty of booze!"

"Yes, at two bits a drink."

"Then straightening himself in his seat the first speaker called out:

"Stella!"

"What?" answered the woman in a low voice.

"Are you hungry?"

Quick as thought she raised her head and looked appealingly into his
face.

"Yes." Her lips trembled, and tears sprang into the dark eyes.

"Have you had anything to eat to-day?"

"No--little fish yesterday," she said quietly, holding