red, without good and sufficient reason, then jealousy,
unless others had been allowed to enter also, would have made a funeral,
and very soon, too, with that one favored man the central figure.

No man had entered that cabin; but a boy had, and oftentime too. In fact
from the first little Billie Piper, whose cabin, as I have said, stood
hard by, seemed to be as much at home and as much in place with the
Widow as he was out of place with the men. The friendship here made him
enemies elsewhere. Such is human nature.

CHAPTER V.

WASHEE--WASHEE.

Two days after the Widow had arrived, Washee-Washee, as the "boys" had
named him, stood out on the steps of his cabin all the afternoon,
looking up the Forks and down the Forks, and wondering what in the world
was the reason the "boys" did not come creaking along and screeching
their great gum boots together, with their extra shirt for wash wadded
down in one of the spacious legs.

Three days after the Widow had arrived she had absorbed all the
business. Four days after she had arrived, she absorbed Washee-Washee.
And now it was the brown hand of little moon-eyed Washee-Washee that
reached through the door, took the clothes, and handed them out again,
or at least such portions as he chose to hand out, to the bearded giants
standing there, patiently waiting at the door of the Widow's cabin.

The face of the Widow was now almost entirely invisible. It was as if
there was no sun at the Forks, and all the sky was in a perpetual
eclipse of clouds.

Soon there was trouble. Clothes began to disappear. One bearded
sovereign, a gallant man, who refused to complain because there was a
woman in the case, was observed to wear his coat buttoned very closely
up to his chin; and that too in midday in Summer. This good man had at
first lost only his extra shirt. He did not complain. He simply went to
bed on Sunday, sent his shirt early to the wash, expecting to rise in
the afternoon, "dress," and go to town. A week went by. The man could
not stay in bed till the day of judgment, so he rose up, buttoned up to
the throat, and went down to buy another supply.

Other circumstances, not dissimilar in result, began to be talked of
quietly; and men began to question whether or not after all the camp had
been greatly the gainer by this new element in its population.

One afternoon there was a commotion at the door of the Widow's cabin.
Sandy was in trouble with Washee-Washee. The moon-