City was the State hostelry. Occasionally the law selected
unwilling guests. It was not over-large, nor was it overcrowded. Had it
sheltered all deserving objects, the free population of the State would
have been visibly diminished.

Pierre only shrugged his shoulders. He followed Luna up the stairs to
the outer door, and watched the big mill foreman as he walked down the
trail to the mill. Then, as was his custom when perturbed in mind,
Pierre crossed the dusty waggon trail and seated himself on a boulder,
leaning his back against a scrubby spruce. He let his eyes rest
contentedly on a big, square-faced building. Rough stone steps led up to
a broad veranda, from which rose, in barbaric splendour, great sheets of
shining plate-glass, that gave an unimpeded view of a long mahogany bar
backed by tiers of glasses and bottles, doubled by reflection from
polished mirrors that reached to the matched-pine ceiling.

Across the room from the bar, roulette and faro tables, bright with
varnish and gaudy with nickel trimmings, were waiting with invitations
to feverish excitement. The room was a modern presentation of Scylla and
Charybdis. Scylla, the bar, stimulated to the daring of Charybdis across
the way, and Charybdis, the roulette, sent its winners to celebrate
success, or its victims to deaden the pain of loss.

At the far end of the room a glass-covered arcade stood in advance of
doors to private club-rooms. At the arcade an obliging attendant passed
out gold and silver coins, for a consideration, in exchange for crumpled
time-checks and greasy drafts.

Pierre grinned and rubbed his hands. Above the plate glass on the
outside a gorgeous rainbow arched high on the painted front. Inscribed
within, in iridescent letters, was: "The Blue Goose. Pierre La Martine."
Beneath the spring of the rainbow, for the benefit of those who could
not read, was a huge blue goose floating aimlessly in a sheet of bluer
water.

This was all of the Blue Goose that was visible to the eyes of the
uninitiated; of the initiated there were not many.

Beneath the floor was a large cellar, wherein was a fierce-looking
furnace, which on occasion grew very red with its labours. There were
pungent jars and ghostly vessels and a litter of sacks, and much
sparkling dust on the earthen floor. All this Pierre knew, and a few
others, though even these had not seen it.

Beneath the shadow of the wings of the Blue Goose dwelt a very plain
woman, who looked