He dropped it in his pocket as he thanked Blackton for the trouble he had taken in finding MacDonald.  As he climbed into the front seat of the buckboard his eyes met Joanne’s.  He was glad that in a large measure she had recovered her self-possession.  She smiled at him as they drove off, and there was something in the sweet tremble of her lips that made him almost fancy she was asking his forgiveness for having forgotten herself.  Her voice sounded more natural to him as she spoke to Mrs. Blackton.  The latter, a plump little blue-eyed woman with dimples and golden hair, was already making her feel at home.  She leaned over and placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder.

“Let’s drive home by way of town, Paul,” she suggested.  “It’s only a little farther, and I’m quite sure Miss Gray will be interested in our Great White Way of the mountains.  And I’m crazy to see that bear you were telling me about,” she added.

Nothing could have suited Aldous more than this suggestion.  He was sure that Quade, following his own and Culver Rann’s old methods, had already prepared stories about Joanne, and he not only wanted Quade’s friends—­but all of Tete Jaune as well—­to see Joanne in the company of Mrs. Paul Blackton and her husband.  And this was a splendid opportunity, for the night carnival was already beginning.

“The bear is worth seeing,” said Blackton, turning his team in the direction of the blazing light of the half-mile street that was the Broadway of Tete Jaune.  “And the woman who rides him is worth seeing, too,” he chuckled.  “He’s a big fellow—­and she plays the Godiva act.  Rides him up and down the street with her hair down, collecting dimes and quarters and half dollars as she goes.”

A minute later the length of the street swept out ahead of them.  It is probable that the world had never before seen a street just like this Broadway in Tete Jaune—­the pleasure Mecca of five thousand workers along the line of steel.  There had been great “camps” in the building of other railroads, but never a city in the wilderness like this—­a place that had sprung up like magic and which, a few months later, was doomed to disappear as quickly.  For half a mile it blazed out ahead of them, two garishly lighted rows of shacks, big tents, log buildings, and rough board structures, with a rough, wide street between.

To-night Tete Jaune was like a blazing fire against the darkness of the forest and mountain beyond.  A hundred sputtering “jacks” sent up columns of yellow flame in front of places already filled with the riot and tumult of the night.  A thousand lamps and coloured lanterns flashed like fireflies along the way, and under them the crowd had gathered, and was flowing back and forth.  It was a weird and fantastic sight—­this one strange and almost uncanny street that was there largely for the play and the excitement of men.