And Keith told a string of stories to show how the Minook miners admired her astuteness, and helped her unblushingly to get the better of one another.

The Colonel stayed in Minook till the recording was all done, and McGinty got tired of living on flap-jacks at the gulch.

The night McGinty arrived in town the Colonel, not even taking the Boy into his confidence, hitched up and departed for the new district.

He came back the next day a sadder and a wiser man.  They had been sold.

McGinty was quick to gather that someone must have given him away.  It had only been a question of time, after all.  He had lined his pockets, and could take the new turn in his affairs with equanimity.

“Wait till the steamers begin to run,” Maudie said; “McGinty’ll play that game with every new boat-load.  Oh, McGinty’ll make another fortune.  Then he’ll go to Dawson and blow it in.  Well, Colonel, sorry you ain’t cultivatin’ rheumatism in a damp hole up at Glory Hallelujah?”

“I—­I am very much obliged to you for saving me from—­”

She cut him short.  “You see you’ve got time now to look about you for something really good, if there is anything outside of Little Minook.”

“It was very kind of you to—­”

“No it wasn’t,” she said shortly.

The Colonel took out a roll of bank bills and selected one, folded it small, and passed it towards her under the ledge of the table.  She glanced down.

“Oh, I don’t want that.”

“Yes, please.”

“Tell you I don’t.”

“You’ve done me a very good turn; saved me a lot of time and expense.”

Slowly she took the money, as one thinking out something.

“Where do you come from?” he asked suddenly.

“’Frisco.  I was in the chorus at the Alcazar.”

“What made you go into the chorus?”

“Got tired o’ life on a sheep-ranch.  All work and no play.  Never saw a soul.  Seen plenty since.”

“Got any people belonging to you?”

“Got a kind of a husband.”

“A kind of a husband?”

“Yes—­the kind you’d give away with a pound o’ tea.”

The little face, full of humourous contempt and shrewd scorn, sobered; she flung a black look round the saloon, and her eyes came back to the Colonel’s face.

“I’ve got a girl,” she said, and a sudden light flashed across her frowning as swiftly as a meteor cuts down along a darkened sky.  “Four years old in June. She ain’t goin’ into no chorus, bet your life! She’s going to have money, and scads o’ things I ain’t never had.”

That night the Colonel and the Boy agreed that, although they had wasted some valuable time and five hundred and twenty-five dollars on McGinty, they still had a chance of making their fortunes before the spring rush.