fering for her, could not bear to meet her eyes. "Perhaps
you'd rather hear another story," he suggested.

She braced herself. "No! Go on!" she said.

"Soon as I see him, I knew who he was," continued old Tom; "for I hear
the fellers talk about a white man that took passage up from the Landing
on Phillippe's boat. He let them pull him all the way; and when they got
to Grier's point, he hadn't no money. They took it out of his skin; and
say, when a white man is beat by a breed it's good-day to him up here!
In a hundred years he couldn't live it down.

"'Do you want to hire a man?' says he mumbling-like; he was too far down
to meet your eye.

"'Hum!' says I thoughtful, 'I want a _man_,' I says.

"You should have heard the fellers laugh at that! They still talk about
it! 'Tom Lillywhite, he wants a man', they say. It's quite a word in the
country. 'Tom Lillywhite wants a _man_!'"

The old freighter went off into an interminable chuckling over the
antique jest.

It was inexpressibly painful to Natalie to have Garth there, a witness
to her humiliation; but she would not stop the story-teller, nor let
Garth stop him.

"However, thinks I, you can sometimes make a man out of unpromisin'
mater'al," he resumed. "And in the end I took him for his grub. That was
Bert Mabyn. For three months I didn't regret it; he was used to horses,
and was first-rate company on the trail. I didn't give him no money--said
he didn't want none--but I fed him up good, and he soon got fat and sassy.
I give him other things too. I couldn't stand for the poor wretch a
shiverin' by my fire in his buttoned-up coat, so I give him blankets;
and afterward an outfit of clothes.

"What do you think was the first thing he ever ast me for?--a razor
and a glass! And every day after that he used to shave hisself--every
day mind you, if we was in the thickest part of the bush! And forever
trimmin' of his nails, and polishin' 'em to make 'em shine! Wasn't
that remarkable?

"He was a great talker. Nights around the fire he used to tell me all
about himself. Seems he comes of real high-toned folks outside; but went
to the bad young. Said he come West three years before that again, full
of good resolutions, which lasted just so long as his money. Since then
he'd been a grub-rider 'round the ranches, and dish-washer in hotels,
and, 'scusin' your presence, Miss, worse than that--but he hadn't no
shame about it!

"I liked the feller. He wasn't no good, but he