, you see, ma'am"--the Colonel's smile was charming in spite of
his wild beard--"we've done such a lot o' dancin' lately--done nothin'
else for forty days; and after seven hundred miles of it we're just a
trifle tired, ma'am."

She laughed good-naturedly.

"Pity you're tired," said the mackinaw man. "There's a pretty good
thing goin' just now, but it won't be goin' long."

The Boy turned his head round again with reviving interest in his own
group.

"Look here, Si," Maudie was saying: "if you want to let a lay on your
new claim to _anybody_, mind it's got to be me."

But the mackinaw man was glancing speculatively over at another group.
In haste to forestall desertion, the Boy inquired:

"Do you know of anything good that isn't staked yet?"

"Well, mebbe I don't--and mebbe I do." Then, as if to prove that he
wasn't overanxious to pursue the subject: "Say, Maudie, ain't that
French Charlie over there?" Maudie put her small nose in the air.
"Ain't you made it up with Charlie yet?'"

"No, I ain't."

"Then we'll have another drink all round."

While he was untying the drawstring of his gold sack, Maudie said,
half-aside, but whether to the Colonel or the Boy neither could tell:
"Might do worse than keep your eye on Si McGinty." She nodded briskly
at the violet checks on the mackinaw back. "Si's got a cinch up there
on Glory Hallelujah, and nobody's on to it yet."

The pianola picked out a polka. The man Si McGinty had called French
Charlie came up behind the girl and said something. She shook her head,
turned on her heel, and began circling about in the narrow space till
she found another partner, French Charlie scowling after them, as they
whirled away between the faro-tables back into the smoke and music at
the rear. McGinty was watching Jimmie, the man at the gold scales,
pinch up some of the excess dust in the scale-pan and toss it back into
the brass blower.

"Where did that gold come from?" asked the Colonel.

"Off a claim o' mine"; and he lapsed into silence.

You are always told these fellows are so anxious to rope in strangers.
This man didn't seem to be. It made him very interesting. The Boy acted
strictly on the woman's hint, and kept an eye on the person who had a
sure thing up on Glory Hallelujah. But when the lucky man next opened
his mouth it was to say:

"Why, there's Butts down from Circle City."

"Butts?" repeated the Boy, with little affectation of interest.

"Yep. Wonder what the so