“I hope you don’t think that we’re the kind of wolves that’s always gatherin’ round wherever there’s a snack of food,” murmured Mrs. Thomas softly as she took a seat beside Pearl.  “We got our own cabin just a piece up in the woods, but Jose, he kind of wanted to make a celebration of your coming up.”

Pearl did not answer, but slipped languidly out of her cloak, untwisted her heavy veil, removed her hat, Jose’s eyes as well as Mrs. Thomas’s following her the while with unmixed admiration, and sat down.

Jose immediately began to roll cigarettes and smoke them while he ate.

“Well, what is the news?” asked Gallito, as he, at least, began his evening meal with every evidence of appreciation; “good fishing, good hunting, good prospecting, eh, Mrs. Nitschkan?”

The gipsy, for she was one by birth as well as by inclination, nodded and showed her teeth in a satisfied smile.  “So good that it looks like we’d be kep’ here even longer than I expected when we come.”  She drew some bits of quartz from her pocket and threw them out on the table before him.  “Some specimens I chipped off in my new prospect,” she said, her eyes upon him.

“So,” he said, examining them with interest, “your luck, Mrs. Nitschkan, as usual.  Where—?  Excuse me,” a dark flush rose on his parchment skin at this breach of mining-camp etiquette which he had almost committed.

For a few moments they talked exclusively of the mining interests of the locality.  It is this feverish, inexhaustible topic that is almost exclusively dwelt upon in mining camps, all other topics seeming tame and commonplace beside this fascinating subject, presided over by the golden fairy of fortune and involving her.  To-day she tempts and eludes, she tantalizes and mocks and flies her thousands of wooers who follow her to the rocks, seeking her with back-breaking toil and dreaming ever of her by day and by night.  Variable and cruel, deaf to all beseeching, she picks out her favorites by some rule of caprice which none but herself understands.

Supper over, Gallito ensconced his two feminine visitors in easy chairs and took one himself, while Jose, with noiseless deftness, cleared away the remains of food.  Pearl had wandered to the window and, drawing the curtain aside, stood gazing out into the featureless, black expanse of the night.

“Quite a few things has happened since I saw you last, Gallito,” said Mrs. Nitschkan conversationally, filling a short and stubby black pipe with loose tobacco from the pocket of her coat.  “For one, I got converted.”

“Ah!” returned Gallito with his unvarying courtesy, although his raised eyebrows showed some perplexity, “to—­to—­a religion?”

“’Course.”  Mrs. Nitschkan leaned forward, her arms upon her knees.  “This world’s the limit, Gallito, and queer things is going to happen whether you’re looking for ’em or not.  About a year ago Jack and the boys went off on a long prospectin’ spell, the girls you know are all married and have homes of their own, an’ there was me left free as air with a dandy spell of laziness right in front of me ready to be catched up ’twixt my thumb and forefinger and put in my pipe and smoked, and I hadn’t even the spirit to grab it.”