be born. A woman's jest the mother of the
world. An' the men she sets on it are there to see her right. The
woman who don't see it that way is wrong--dead wrong. An' the man that
don't get right up on to his hind legs an' do those things--wal, he
ain't a man."

It was a moment Joan would never forget. As long as she lived that
eager face, with eyes alight, the rapid tongue pouring out the
sentiments of his simple heart must ever remain with her. It was a
picture of virile manhood such as in her earliest youth she had
dreamed of, a dream which had grown dimmer and dimmer as she
progressed toward womanhood and learned the ways of the life that had
been hers. Here it was in all reality, in all its pristine simplicity,
but--she gathered up her reins and moved her horse round, heading him
toward home.

"I'm glad I came out here--in the wilderness," she said earnestly.
"I'm glad, too, that I came to see this great black hill. Yes, and I'm
glad to think that I have begun the lessons which this great big world
is going to teach me. For the rest--we'd better go home. Look! The
daylight is going."

CHAPTER XIX

A STUDY IN MISCHIEF

Nearly three months had passed and all Beasley Melford's affairs were
amply prospering. His new saloon was the joy of his heart. It had been
completed more than a week, which week had been something in the
nature of a triumph of financial success. The camp was booming as he
had never dared to hope it would boom. Traders were opening up
business all round him, and the output of gold was increasing every
day. But, with all this rapid development, with all the wrangling and
competition going on about him, he was the centre of the commercial
interests of Yellow Creek, and his saloon was the centre of all its
traffic.

But he was quite alive to the fact that he must maintain his position
and custom by keeping well in line, even just a little ahead of all
competition. He knew that to rest on his oars would be to court swift
disaster. It must be his constant thought to make his place more and
more attractive, to listen to the voice of public requirements, and
seize every opportunity of catering for them.

His saloon was no better than a gambling-hell and drinking-booth, the
dry goods side of his enterprise being almost insignificant. For he
knew that the more surely his customers could indulge in such pastimes
in comparative comfort the more surely he would keep them. So he made
these thing