bagpipe. Peggy Blackton
was pointing to a brilliantly lighted, black-tarpaulined shop. Huge white
letters on its front announced that Lady Barbers were within. They could
see two of them at work through the big window. And they were pretty. The
place was crowded with men. Men were waiting outside.

"Paul says they charge a dollar for a haircut and fifty cents for a shave,"
explained Peggy Blackton. "And the man over there across the street is
going broke because he can't get business at fifteen cents a shave. _Isn't_
it funny?"

As they went on Aldous searched the street for Quade. Several times he
turned to the back seat, and always he found Joanne's eyes questing in that
strange way for the some one whom she expected to see. Mrs. Blackton was
pointing out lighted places, and explaining things as they passed, but he
knew that in spite of her apparent attention Joanne heard only a part of
what she was saying. In that crowd she hoped--or feared--to find a certain
face. And again Aldous told himself that it was not Quade's face.

Near the end of the street a crowd was gathering, and here, for a moment,
Blackton stopped his team within fifty feet of the objects of attraction. A
slim, exquisitely formed woman in shimmering silk was standing beside a
huge brown bear. Her sleek black hair, shining as if it had been oiled,
fell in curls about her shoulders. Her rouged lips were smiling. Even at
that distance her black eyes sparkled like diamonds. She had evidently just
finished taking up a collection, for she was fastening the cord of a silken
purse about her neck. In another moment she bestrode the bear, the crowd
fell apart, and as the onlookers broke into a roar of applause the big
beast lumbered slowly up the street with its rider.

"One of Culver Rann's friends," said Blackton _sotto voce_, as he drove on.
"She takes in a hundred a night if she makes a cent!"

[Illustration: A slim, exquisitely formed woman in shimmering silk was
standing beside a huge brown bear. In another moment she bestrode the bear,
and the big beast lumbered up the street with its rider.]

Blackton's big log bungalow was close to the engineers' camp half a mile
distant from the one lighted street and the hundreds of tents and shacks
that made up the residential part of the town. Not until they were inside,
and Peggy Blackton had disappeared with Joanne for a few moments, did
Aldous take old Donald MacDonald's note from his pocket. He pulled out