afety among those
rough men in that cesspool of iniquity. Very earnestly she strove to
reassure me.

"Oh, my dear, it is in those rough men, the uncouth, big-hearted miners,
that I place my trust. They know I'm a good girl. They wouldn't say a
coarse thing before me for the world. You've no idea the chivalrous
respect they show for me, and the rougher they are the finer their
instincts seem to be. It's the others, the so-called gentlemen, who
would like to take advantage of me if they could."

She looked at me with bright, clear eyes, fearless in their scorn of
sham and pretence.

"Then there are the women. It's strange, but no matter how degraded
they are they try to shield and protect me. Only last week Kimona Kate
made a fearful scene with her escort because he said something bad
before me. I'm getting tolerant. Oh, you've no idea until you know them
what good qualities some of these women have. Often their hearts are as
big as all outdoors; they would nurse you devotedly if you were sick;
they would give you their last dollar if you were in want. Many of them
have old mothers and little children they're supporting outside, and
they would rather die than that their dear ones should know the life
they are living. It's the men, the men that are to blame."

I shook my head sadly.

"I don't like it, Berna, I don't like it at all. I hate you to know the
like of such people, such things. I just want you to be again the dear,
sweet little girl I first knew, all maidenly modesty and shuddering
aversion of evil."

"I'm afraid, dear, I shall never be that again," she said sorrowfully;
"but am I any the worse for knowing? Why should you men want to keep all
such knowledge to yourselves? Is our innocence simply to be another name
for ignorance?"

She put her arms round my neck and kissed me fervently.

"Oh, no, my dear, my dear. I have seen the vileness of things, and it
only makes me more in love with love and beauty. We'll go, you and I, to
Italy very soon, and forget, forget. Even if we have to toil like
peasants in the vineyards we'll go, far, far away."

So I felt strengthened, stimulated, gladdened, and, as I lay on my bunk
listening to the merry crackle of the wood fire, I was in a purring
lethargy of content. Then I remembered something.

"Oh, say, boys, I forgot to tell you. I met McCrimmon down the creek.
You remember him on the trail, the Halfbreed. He was asking after you
both; then all at once he said h