“Minook’s all right.  No josh about that,” she said, setting down her glass.  Then to the Boy, “Have a dance?”

“Not much,” he replied rather roughly, and turned away to talk about the diggin’s to two men on the other side.

Maudie laid her hand on the Colonel’s arm, and the diamond twitched the light. “You will,” she said.

“Well, you see, ma’am”—­the Colonel’s smile was charming in spite of his wild beard—­“we’ve done such a lot o’ dancin’ lately—­done nothin’ else for forty days; and after seven hundred miles of it we’re just a trifle tired, ma’am.”

She laughed good-naturedly.

“Pity you’re tired,” said the mackinaw man.  “There’s a pretty good thing goin’ just now, but it won’t be goin’ long.”

The Boy turned his head round again with reviving interest in his own group.

“Look here, Si,” Maudie was saying:  “if you want to let a lay on your new claim to anybody, mind it’s got to be me.”

But the mackinaw man was glancing speculatively over at another group.  In haste to forestall desertion, the Boy inquired: 

“Do you know of anything good that isn’t staked yet?”

“Well, mebbe I don’t—­and mebbe I do.”  Then, as if to prove that he wasn’t overanxious to pursue the subject:  “Say, Maudie, ain’t that French Charlie over there?” Maudie put her small nose in the air.  “Ain’t you made it up with Charlie yet?’”

“No, I ain’t.”

“Then we’ll have another drink all round.”

While he was untying the drawstring of his gold sack, Maudie said, half-aside, but whether to the Colonel or the Boy neither could tell:  “Might do worse than keep your eye on Si McGinty.”  She nodded briskly at the violet checks on the mackinaw back.  “Si’s got a cinch up there on Glory Hallelujah, and nobody’s on to it yet.”

The pianola picked out a polka.  The man Si McGinty had called French Charlie came up behind the girl and said something.  She shook her head, turned on her heel, and began circling about in the narrow space till she found another partner, French Charlie scowling after them, as they whirled away between the faro-tables back into the smoke and music at the rear.  McGinty was watching Jimmie, the man at the gold scales, pinch up some of the excess dust in the scale-pan and toss it back into the brass blower.

“Where did that gold come from?” asked the Colonel.

“Off a claim o’ mine”; and he lapsed into silence.

You are always told these fellows are so anxious to rope in strangers.  This man didn’t seem to be.  It made him very interesting.  The Boy acted strictly on the woman’s hint, and kept an eye on the person who had a sure thing up on Glory Hallelujah.  But when the lucky man next opened his mouth it was to say: 

“Why, there’s Butts down from Circle City.”

“Butts?” repeated the Boy, with little affectation of interest.

“Yep.  Wonder what the son of a gun is after here.”  But he spoke genially, even with respect.