It was in itself a new thing to find the long, low building
lighted at that hour, even though, as he had himself put it to Joe an
instant before, it was hours from being late. That night the almost
absolute silence beyond the closed door was an even more unusual state
of affairs. The voice of one man only was audible; the words he spoke
indistinguishable altogether. But sudden bursts of laughter,
punctuating the recital which he could not clearly follow, were
indication enough to the man outside of what manner of tale was holding
the ears of that roomful of rivermen. Stephen O'Mara, who had long
ceased to wonder at the discovery in them, of new and impulsive
finenesses which bordered close upon inherent nobility, knew fully as
well how utterly and unspeakably gross could be the premeditated
coarseness of those same men.

There was no movement to mark his entrance when he finally pressed the
latch and swung the door open; not so much as a single glance to
indicate that his presence was noted. Under the yellow light of
flickering oil lamps the eyes of all those scores of gaudy-shirted
figures lounging against the walls were fixed eagerly upon the face of
him who held the middle of their stage--him who talked from where he
half-lay, propped on one elbow, in his bunk at the end of the room.
Harrigan, red-shirted, red-headed, was lounging at case, waiting for
the last gurgle of appreciation to subside, before he gave them the
close of the story--the last titbit, the savor of which already had set
him noisily to licking his lips. And in the doorway Steve, rigid of a
sudden, sensed what that climax was to be.

"--Her fi-an-say inside," the droningly indistinguishable words were
very plain now, "her fi-an-say inside, consoomed with pr-ride and
anticipation, tellin' all who had come to dance that she had pr-romised
to be his, for-river more! And her, at that same minute outside with
him--and both av thim. . . ."

Harrigan did not hurry it in the telling. And if his portrayal of
Archibald Wickersham was unmistakably deliberate, neither did he fail
for want of sufficient detail, to make the other picture clear. Vilely
he gave them the complete imagery of his vile brain.

A shout went up, a louder, hoarser outcry of applause which rocked the
room. And then that rigid figure in the doorway had started forward.
Between those lanes of suddenly silent men Steve passed in silence, to
stand before him who had achieved his