ade him hold his tongue about it."

"And then made him own up when she saw----"

The boy nodded.

"What's goin' to happen?"

"Oh, he'll swing to-morrow instead o' me. By the way, Colonel, a fella
hunted me up this mornin' who'd been to Minook. Looked good to him.
I've sold out Idaho Bar."

"'Nough to buy back your Orange Grove?"

He shook his head. "'Nough to pay my debts and start over again."

When the Dawson doctor left that night Maudie, as usual, followed him
out. They waited a long time for her to come back.

"Perhaps she's gone to her own tent;" and the Boy went to see. He
found her where the Colonel used to go to smoke, sitting, staring out
to nowhere.

As the boy looked closer he saw she had been crying, for even in the
midst of honest service Maudie, like many a fine lady before her, could
not forego the use of cosmetic. Her cheeks were streaked and stained.

"Five dollars a box here, too," she said mechanically, as she wiped
some of the rouge off with a handkerchief. Her hand shook.

"What's the matter?"

"It's all up," she answered.

"Not with him?" He motioned towards the tent.

She nodded.

"Doctor says so?"

"----and I knew it before, only I wouldn't believe it."

She had spoken with little agitation, but now she flung her arms out
with a sudden anguish that oddly took the air of tossing into space
Bonanza and its treasure. It was the motion of one who renounces the
thing that means the most--a final fling in the face of the gods. The
Boy stood quite still, submitting his heart to that first quick rending
and tearing asunder which is only the initial agony of parting.

"How soon?" he said, without raising his eyes.

"Oh, he holds on--it may be a day or two."

The Boy walked slowly away towards the ridge of the low hill. Maudie
turned and watched him. On the top of the divide he stopped, looking
over. Whatever it was he saw off there, he could not meet it yet. He
flung himself down with his face in the fire-weed, and lay there all
night long.

Kaviak was sent after him in the morning, but only to say, "Breakfast,
Maudie's tent."

The Boy saw that Mac and Potts knew. For the first time the Big Chimney
men felt a barrier between them and that one who had been the common
bond, keeping the incongruous allied and friendly. Only Nig ran in and
out, unchilled by the imminence of the Colonel's withdrawal from his
kind.

Towards noon the O'Flynns came up the creek, and were stopped ne