"This is bad enough at the best. Don't let's make it any worse,"
said he.

Slapjack inhaled deeply, spat with disgust, and looked over his
boss incredulously.

"Well, of all the different kinds of damn fools," he snorted, "you
are the kindest." He marched past the marshal and his deputies
down to the cut, put on his coat, and vanished down the trail
towards town, not deigning a backward glance either at the mine or
at the man unfit to fight for.




CHAPTER VII

THE "BRONCO KID'S" EAVESDROPPING


Late in July it grows dark as midnight approaches, so that the
many lights from doorway and window seem less garish and strange
than they do a month earlier. In the Northern there was good
business doing. The new bar fixtures, which had cost a king's
ransom, or represented the one night's losings of a Klondike
millionaire, shone rich, dark, and enticing, while the cut glass
sparkled with iridescent hues, reflecting, in a measure, the
prismatic moods, the dancing spirits of the crowd that crushed
past, halting at the gambling games, or patronizing the theatre in
the rear. The old bar furniture, brought down by dog team from "Up