up one finger to
indicate the number.

"Good God! She's starving! Here, you toddy slinger, there! I say, can't
you give this woman something to eat?" to the man behind the bar.

"Wal, I'm sorry to say it, but there aint no grub here; leastwise that's
good for Eskimo," he added with a wink.

"I guess most anything would be good for her, and you hand out something
real sudden, too," said the young man, tossing a bright silver dollar
toward the counter.

"Oh, wal', if that's the game, I'm here. Oyster cocktail and crackers,
eh, Stella?"

The woman's eyes brightened at the last words, which she understood; the
first she was a stranger to, but if it was something to fill the awful
void beneath she could eat it. She nodded eagerly.

Beggars could not be choosers. That was never plainer than now. Cocktail
and crackers soon disappeared, a good share of the latter going
underneath the woman's parkie to keep for her boy when he awaked. The
cocktail he must not have.

An hour later a few of the miners played on. Some, whose well filled
"pokes" permitted had gone to warm and comfortable beds, others to cold
and cheerless bunks, as the case happened; but the Eskimo woman, with
her sleeping boy on her lap, slept heavily. Sitting on the floor in a
corner, with her head against a bench, she had for a time forgotten her
sorrows.

Presently the door was partly opened, and an Eskimo slipped softly
inside. The men were still intent on their "black jack", and he was
unnoticed. His anxious face perceptibly brightened when he saw Estella,
and he gave a deep sigh of relief as he seated himself near the fire.

There was a lull between games at the green table.

"Say, boys, what's become of Buster?" asked one of the miners.

"Gone to the devil, I guess. That's where he was goin' the last time I
saw him," remarked one in no uncertain tone of voice.

"Oh, no, he's married a white woman," exclaimed the youngest of the
party.

"Ha, ha! That's a good 'un. My lad, I'm older'n you, and I tell you it
may be as you say and still not alter the case of his goin' to the old
boy. Some women I know of help a man faster that way than t'other," said
the old miner.

"Buster's a chump! Just look at all the money he's made off the natives
and see the way he treats 'em!" jerking his thumb over his shoulder
toward the two asleep in the corner.

"And that kid of his'n. He ought to take care of him instead of lettin'
him starve to death like this.