"God knows what that boy suffered the next few weeks, but he fought
it out alone. She was proud, but he was prouder. Her silence hurt
him the worst, of course; but what could he do? Go to her? Fine!
Both of us broke and in debt. Also, there's such a thing as diggin'
deep enough to scrape the varnish off of a man's self-respect,
leavin' it raw and shrinking. No! He done like you or me--let her
have her way. He took off the locket and hid it, and I never heard
her name mentioned for a year.

"I'd been up creek for a whip-saw one day, and as I came back I heard
voices in the cabin. 'Some musher out from town,' thinks I, till
something in their tones made me stop in my tracks.

"I could hear the boy's voice, hoarse and throbbing, as though he
dragged words out bleeding, then I heard the other one laugh--a
nasty, sneering laugh that ended in a choking rattle, like a noose
had tightened on his throat.

"I jumped for the door, and rounding the corner, something near took
me off my feet; something that shot through the air, all pretty and
knickerbockery, with a two-faced cap, and nice brown leggin's. Also,
a little camera was harnessed to it by tugs. It arose, displaying
the face of R. Alonzo Struthers, black and swollen, with chips
stickin' in it where he'd hit the woodpile. He glared at Morrow, and
his lips foamed like a crab out of water.

"'I hope I'm not intrudin', I ventures.

"When the kid seen me, he says, soft and weak, like something ailed
his palate:

"'Don't let me kill him, Billy.'"

[Illustration: "Don't let me kill him, Billy."]

"Struthers spit, and picked splinters forth from his complexion.

"'I told you for your own good. It's common gossip,' says he.
'Everybody is laughing at you, an--'

"Then I done a leap for life for the kid, 'cause the murder light
blazed up white in his face, and he moved at the man like he had
something serious in view.

"'Run, you idiot!' I yells to Struthers as I jammed the youngster
back into the cabin. All of a sudden the gas went out of him and he
broke, hanging to me like a baby.

"'It can't be,' he whispers. 'It can't be.' He throwed hisself on
to a goods' box, and buried his face in his hands. It gripes me to
hear a man cry, so I went to the creek for a pail of water.

"I never heard what Struthers said, but it don't take no Nick Carter
to guess.

"That was the fall of the Fryin' Pan strike--do you mind it?
Shakespeare George put us on, so