ainbow without colors?"

Then the little medicine-man took his pulse, kneeling on the floor
beside him. Oh, the great sailor was puzzled. Still he drank what was in
the glass before him and after this he put his mustache into his mouth,
sipping it by chance.

"What is this you are preparing?" he said, pointing his bold nose to
them. Oh, the eyes were like a dreamer's: he was a child to appearances.

Then they went speaking to him of the stringed instrument they had heard
humming on the ledge, speaking another language than his own.

"This is a wife to be defended," said Shoepack Sam, padding there with
his yellow shoepacks bringing another drink. But still there was no word
of Pal Yachy. That black Italian was not popular at Throat River.

"Now I see you are speaking of another man," said Rainbow Pete. Then
Shoepack Sam went roaring, it was time for honest men to speak, when an
honest woman was being taken by a voice.

"Wait," said Rainbow Pete, with his thumb in the foam, "this is unlikely
she will want me cruising in, with another man singing in her ear."

Oh my, he was a considerate man, he was a natural husband, thinking of
his wife's feelings.

"Are you a man?" said Smash McGregor. "Here she has fed you when you
were starving--this is her food you have been eating. Will you pass this
ledge, leaving her to fortune?"

Rainbow Pete went putting the edge of the cruiser's ax to his twisted
thumb.

"I come to her in my shoes only," he said. "This is not what she will be
wanting. I have no gold."

They were shouting to him to have no thought of that, those mad rockmen.
There would be gold in plenty. There would be gold. Only go up on the
ledge.

"Heard you nothing of the prize?" they bawled to him, the mischief
makers. "Oh, there will be no lack of money."

"How is this?" said Rainbow Pete. But they would not be answering him.
No! No! They went tumbling him out of Scarecrow Charlie's place, and
making for the ledge with him. Oh my, the mystified man. This was a
great shameface he had behind his mustache.

"I am much altered for the worse," he went muttering to us. "She will
think nothing of me now."

"There is still time for constancy," said Shoepack Sam. "Do not lose
hope."

Then he told them to be quiet, looking up at the dark ledge where the
woman lay.

"Old Greyback," said Rainbow Pete, whispering to me, "I am mistrustful
of this moment."

"Hist!" said McGregor, "that was the sound of his strin