After perhaps an hour, during which a considerable crowd had come and gone, Sam Kirby broke away from the group with which he had been drinking and made for the door.  As he passed Rouletta he paused to say: 

“I’m going to drift around a bit, kid, and see if I can’t stir up a little game.”

“Where are we going to put up for the night?” his daughter inquired.

“I don’t know yet; it’s early.  Want to turn in?”

Rouletta shook her head.

“I’ll find a place somewhere.  Now you stick here where it’s nice and warm.  I’ll be back by and by.”

With sinking heart the girl watched him go.  After a moment she rose and followed him out into the night.  She was surprised to discover that the mud under foot had frozen and that the north wind bore a burden of fine, hard snow particles.  Keeping well out of sight, she stumbled to another saloon door, and then, after shivering wretchedly outside for a while, she stole in and crept up behind the stove.

She was very miserable indeed by this time, and as the evening wore slowly on her misery increased.  After a while her father began shaking dice with some strangers, and the size of their wagers drew an audience of interested bystanders.

Rouletta realized that she should not have exposed herself anew to the cold, for now her sensations had become vaguely alarming.  She could not even begin to get warm, except now and then when a burning fever replaced her chill; she felt weak and ill inside; the fingers she pressed to her aching temples were like icicles.  Eventually—­she had lost all track of time—­her condition became intolerable and she decided to risk her father’s displeasure by interrupting him and demanding that he secure for both of them a lodging-place at once.

There were several bank-notes of large denomination on the plank bar-top and Sam Kirby was watching a cast of dice when his daughter approached; therefore he did not see her.  Nor did he turn his head when she laid a hand upon his arm.

Now women, especially pretty women, were common enough sights in Alaskan drinking-places.  So it was not strange that Rouletta’s presence had occasioned neither comment nor curiosity.  More than once during the last hour or two men had spoken to her with easy familiarity, but they had taken no offense when she had turned her back.  It was quite natural, therefore, that the fellow with whom Kirby was gambling should interpret her effort to claim attention as an attempt to interrupt the game, and that he should misread the meaning of her imploring look.  There being considerable money at stake, he frowned down at her, then with an impatient gesture he brushed her aside.

“None of that, sister!” he warned her.  “You get out of here.”

Sam Kirby was in the midst of a discussion with the proprietor, across the bar, and because there was a deal of noise in the place he did not hear his daughter’s low-spoken protest.