Pierce noticed now that she was a very pretty girl, and quite appropriately dressed, under the circumstances.  She wore a boy’s suit, with a short skirt over her knickerbockers, and, since she was slim, the garments added to her appearance of immaturity.  Her face was oval in outline, and it was of a perfectly uniform olive tint; her eyes were large and black and velvety, their lashes were long, their lids were faintly smudged with a shadowy under-coloring that magnified their size and intensified their brilliance.  Her hair was almost black, nevertheless it was of fine texture; a few unruly strands had escaped from beneath her fur cap and they clouded her brow and temples.  At first sight she appeared to be foreign, and of that smoky type commonly associated with the Russian idea of beauty, but she was not foreign, not Russian; nor were her features predominantly racial.

“What’s your name?” she asked, suddenly.

Pierce told her.  “And yours?” he inquired.

“Laure.”

“Laure what?”

“Just Laure—­for the present.”

“Humph!  You’re one of this—­theatrical company, I presume.”  He indicated the singers across the room.

“Yes.  Morris Best hired us to work in his place at Dawson.”

“I remember your outfit at Sheep Camp.  Best was nearly crazy—­”

“He’s crazier now than ever.”  Laure smiled for the first time and her face lit up with mischief.  “Poor Morris!  We lead him around by his big nose.  He’s deathly afraid he’ll lose us, and we know it, so we make his life miserable.”  She turned serious abruptly, and with a candor quite startling said, “I like you.”

“Indeed!” Pierce was nonplussed.

The girl nodded.  “You looked good to me when you came in.  Are you going to Dawson?”

“Of course.  Everybody is going to Dawson.”

“I suppose you have partners?”

“No!” Pierce’s face darkened.  “I’m alone—­very much alone.”  He undertook to speak in a hollow, hopeless tone.

“Big outfit?”

“None at all.  But I have enough money for my needs and—­I’ll probably hook up with somebody.”  Now there was a brave but cheerless resignation in his words.

Laure pondered for a moment; even more carefully than before she studied her companion.  That the result satisfied her she made plain by saying: 

“Morris wants men.  I can get him to hire you.  Would you like to hook up with us?”

“I don’t know.  It doesn’t much matter.  Will you have something to drink now?”

“Why should I?  They don’t give any percentage here.  Wait!  I’ll see Morris and tell you what he says.”  Leaving Pierce, the speaker hurried to a harassed little man of Hebraic countenance who was engaged in the difficult task of chaperoning this unruly aggregation of talent.  To him she said: 

“I’ve found a man for you, Morris.”

“Man?”

“To go to Dawson with us.  That tall, good-looking fellow at the bar.”