. By
her siren strength she conquered him as she had conquered many another,
and as she led him off there was a look of triumph on her face. Poor
Youth! At the end of the dance he did not go home, nor did he "shake"
her. He had another and another and another. The excitement began to
paint his cheeks, the drink to stoke wild fires in his eyes. As I stood
deserted I tried to attract him, to get him back; but he no longer
heeded me.

"I don't see the Madonna to-night," said a little, dark individual in
spectacles. Somehow he looked to me like a newspaper man "chasing" copy.

"No," said one of the girls; "she ain't workin'. She's sick; she don't
take very kindly to the business, somehow. Don't seem to get broke in
easy. She's funny, poor kid."

Carelessly they went on to talk of other things, while I stood there
gasping, staring, sick at heart. All my vinous joy was gone, leaving me
a haggard, weary wretch of a man, disenchanted and miserable to the
verge of--what? I shuddered. The lights seemed to have gone blurred and
dim. The hall was tawdry, cheap and vulgar. The women, who but a moment
before had seemed creatures of grace and charm, were now nothing more
than painted, posturing harridans, their seductive smiles the leers of
shameless sin.

And this was a Dawson dance-hall, the trump card in the nightly game of
despoliation. Dance-halls, saloons, gambling-dens, brothels, the heart
of the town was a cancer, a hive of iniquity. Here had flocked the most
rapacious of gamblers, the most beautiful and unscrupulous women on the
Pacific slope. Here in the gold-born city they waited for their prey,
the Man with the Poke. Back there in the silent Wild, with pain and
bloody sweat, he toiled for them. Sooner or later must he come within
reach of their talons to be fleeced, flouted and despoiled. It was an
organised system of sharpers, thugs, harpies, and birds of prey of every
kind. It was a blot on the map. It was a great whirlpool, and the eddy
of it encircled the furthest outpost of the golden valley. It was a
vortex of destruction, of ruin and shame. And here was I, hovering on
its brink, likely to be soon sucked down into its depths.

I pressed my way to the door, and stood there staring and swaying, but
whether with wine or weakness I knew not. In the vociferous and
flamboyant street I could hear the raucous voices of the spielers, the
jigging tunes of the orchestras, the click of ivory balls, the popping
of corks, th