er. Next they were gambling, and made not much noise over it at
first; but the Indians in due time began to lose to the soberer whites,
becoming quarrelsome, and raising a clumsy disturbance, though it was
plain the whites had their own way and were feared. The voices rose, and
soon there was no moment that several were not shouting curses at once,
till Mrs. Clallam stopped her ears. She was still for a time, hearing
only in a muffled way, when all at once the smell of drink and tobacco,
that had sifted only a little through the cracks, grew heavy in the
room, and she felt Nancy shrink close to her side.

"Mother, mother," the child whispered, "what's that?"

It had gone beyond card-playing with the company in the saloon; they
seemed now to be having a savage horse-play, those on their feet
tramping in their scuffles upon others on the floor, who bellowed
incoherently. Elizabeth Clallam took Nancy in her arms and told her that
nobody would come where they were.

But the child was shaking. "Yes, they will," she whispered, in terror.
"They are!" And she began a tearless sobbing, holding her mother with
her whole strength.

A little sound came close by the bed, and Elizabeth's senses stopped so
that for half a minute she could not stir. She stayed rigid beneath the
quilt, and Nancy clung to her. Something was moving over the floor. It
came quite near, but turned, and its slight rustle crawled away towards
the window.

"Who is that?" demanded Mrs. Clallam, sitting up.

There was no answer, but the slow creeping continued, always close along
the floor, like the folds of stuff rubbing, and hands feeling their way
in short slides against the boards. She had no way to find where her
husband was sleeping, and while she thought of this and whether or not
to rush out at the door, the table was gently shaken, there was a drawer
opened, and some object fell.

"Only a thief," she said to herself, and in a sort of sharp joy cried
out her question again.

The singular broken voice of a woman answered, seemingly in fear.
"Match-es," it said; and "Match-es" said a second voice, pronouncing
with difficulty, like the first. She knew it was some of the squaws, and
sprang from the bed, asking what they were doing there. "Match-es,"
they murmured; and when she had struck a light she saw how the two were
cringing, their blankets huddled round them. Their motionless black eyes
looked up at her from the floor where they lay sprawled, ma