you'd be let?"

"Why not?" asked Hal.

"Sure, 't would be a bad example for the others."

"Do you mean I _have_ to board at Reminitsky's?"

"There be six company boardin'-houses," said the woman.

"And what would they do if I came to you?"

"First you'd get a hint, and then you'd go down the canyon, and maybe us
after ye."

"But there's lots of people have boarders in shanty-town," objected Hal.

"Oh! Them wops! Nobody counts them--they live any way they happen to
fall. But you started at Reminitsky's, and 't would not be healthy for
them that took ye away."

"I see," laughed Hal. "There seem to be a lot of unhealthy things
hereabouts."

"Sure there be! They sent down Nick Ammons because his wife bought milk
down the canyon. They had a sick baby, and it's not much you get in this
thin stuff at the store. They put chalk in it, I think; any way, you can
see somethin' white in the bottom."

"So you have to trade at the store, too!"