ed to "git" when a landlord had done with him. He saw the
hints plainly enough, but had evidently made up his mind to be doggedly
irresponsive. It is a mistake to think that drink always dulls a
man's feelings. Some natures are all the more keenly sensitive when
alcoholically poisoned.

Danny was always front man at the shanty while his cheque was fresh--at
least, so he was given to understand, and so he apparently understood.
He was then allowed to say and do what he liked almost, even to mauling
the barmaid about. There was scarcely any limit to the free and easy
manner in which you could treat her, so long as your money lasted. She
wouldn't be offended; it wasn't business to be so--"didn't pay." But, as
soon as your title to the cheque could be decently shelved, you had to
treat her like a lady. Danny knew this--none better; but he had been
treated with too much latitude, and rushed to his destruction.

It was Sunday afternoon, but that made no difference in things at the
shanty. Dinner was just over. The men were in the mean little parlour
off the bar, interested in a game of cards, and Alice sat in one corner
sewing. Danny was "acting the goat" round the fireplace; as ill-luck
would have it, his attention was drawn to a basket of clean linen which
stood on the side table, and from it, with sundry winks and grimaces,
he gingerly lifted a certain garment of ladies' underwear--to put the
matter decently. He held it up between his forefingers and thumbs, and
cracked a rough, foolish joke--no matter what it was. The laugh didn't
last long. Alice sprang to her feet, flinging her work aside, and struck
a stage attitude--her right arm thrown out and the forefinger pointing
rigidly, and rather crookedly, towards the door.

"Leave the room!" she snapped at Danny. "Leave the room! How dare you
talk like that before me-e-ee!"

Danny made a step and paused irresolutely. He was sober enough to feel
the humiliation of his position, and having once been a man of spirit,
and having still the remnants of manhood about him, he did feel it. He
gave one pitiful, appealing look at her face, but saw no mercy there.
She stamped her foot again, jabbed her forefinger at the door, and said,
"Go-o-o!" in a tone that startled the majority of the company nearly as
much as it did Danny. Then Yankee Jack threw down his cards, rose from
the table, laid his strong, shapely right hand--not roughly--on Danny's
ragged shoulder, and engineered the d