“I don’ know,” the other confessed.  “But, for dat matter, how she run downhill?  She ’ain’t got no legs.  I s’pose de book hexplain it somehow.  Wal!  I stake two claim—­one for you, one for me.  It’s dandy place for cabin!  You look forty mile from dat spot.  Mak’ you feel jus’ lak bird on top of high tree.  Dere’s plenty dry wood, too, an’ down below is de Forks—­nice town wit’ saloon an’ eatin’- place.  You can hear de choppin’ an’ de win’lass creakin’ and smell de smoke.  It’s fine place for singin’ songs up dere.”

“’Poleon!” Rouletta tried to look her sternest.  “You’re a great, overgrown boy.  You can’t stick to anything.  You’re merely lonesome and you want to get in where the people are.”

“Lonesome!  Don’ I live lak bear when I’m trappin’?  Some winter I don’ see nobody in de least.”

“Probably I made a mistake in bringing you down here to Dawson,” the girl continued, meditatively.  “You were doing well up the river, and you were happy.  Here you spend your money; you gamble, you drink—­the town is spoiling you just as it is spoiling the others.”

“Um-m!  Mebbe so,” the man confessed.  “Never I felt lak I do lately.  If I don’ come in town to-day I swell up an’ bus’.  I’m full of t’ing’ I can’t say.”

“Go to work somewhere.”

“For wages?  Me?” Doret shook his head positively.  “I try him once--cookin’ for gang of rough-neck’—­but I mak’ joke an’ I’m fire’.  Dem feller kick ‘bout my grub an’ it mak’ me mad, so one day I sharpen all de table-knife.  I put keen edge on dem—­lak razor.”  The speaker showed his white teeth in a flashing smile.  “Dat’s meanes’ trick ever I play.  Sapre!  Dem feller cut deir mouth so fast dey mos’ die of bleedin’.  No, I ain’t hired man for nobody.  I mus’ be free.”

“Very well,” Rouletta sighed, resignedly, “I won’t scold you, for--I’m too glad to see you.”  Affectionately she squeezed his arm, whereupon he beamed again in the frankest delight.  “Now, then, we’ll have supper and you can take me home.”

The Rialto was crowded with its usual midnight throng; there was the hubbub of loud voices and the ebb and flow of laughter.  From midway of the gambling-hall rose the noisy exhortations of some amateur gamester who was breathing upon his dice and pleading earnestly, feelingly, with “Little Joe”; from the theater issued the strains of a sentimental ballad.  As Rouletta and her companion edged their way toward the lunch-counter in the next room they were intercepted by the Snowbird, whose nightly labors had also ended.

“All aboard for the big eats,” the latter announced.  “Mocha’s buttoned up in a stud game where he dassen’t turn his head to spit.  He’s good for all night, but I’m on the job.”

“I’m having supper with ’Poleon,” Rouletta told him.

The Snowbird paused in dismay.  “Say!  You can’t run out on a pal,” he protested.  “You got to O.K. my vittles or they won’t harmonize.”