stamp of the cities
in his fashionable clothes, the relentless marks of a city's
dissipation about his small mouth and light eyes and, in air and
features, a suggestion of the French.

"Marc," she said, drawing at her gauntlets, her back upon Sefton and
Drennen, "if you can arrange for a room for me I shall go to it
immediately."

Marc obeyed her as Captain Sefton had done, turning to Marquette with
an inquiry. Drennen's eyes were only for a fleeting moment upon Sefton
whose quick fingers were busy at the wound. Then they returned to the
table at which he had diced. Frank Marquette, seeing the look, poured
the gold all into the canvas bag and brought it to him.

The eyes of one man alone did not waver once while the girl was in the
room, black eyes as tender as a woman's, eloquent now with admiration,
their glance like a caress. Ramon Garcia spoke softly, under his
breath. Ernestine Dumont looked down at him curiously. She had nor
understood the words for they were Spanish. They had meant,

"Now am I resigned to my exile!"

CHAPTER VI

THE PROMISE OF A RAINBOW

For a week Dave Drennen lay upon the bunk in the one room dugout which
had been home for him during the winter. Stubborn and sullen and
silent at first, snarling his anger as sufficient strength came back
into him, he refused the aid which the Settlement, now keenly
solicitous, offered. He knew why the men who had not spoken to him two
weeks ago sought to befriend him now. He knew that the swift change of
attitude was due to nothing in the world but to a fear that he might
die without disclosing his golden secret.

"And I am of half a mind to die," he told the last man to trouble him;
"just to shame Kootanie George, to hang Ernestine Dumont and to drive a
hundred gold seekers mad."

During the week a boy from Joe's Lunch Counter brought him his meals
and gave him the scant attention he demanded. The boy went away with
money in his pockets and with tales to tell of a man like a wounded
bull moose. Always there were eager hands to detain him, eager tongues
to ask if Drennen had let anything drop. Always the same answer, a
shake of the head; he had learned nothing.

The day after the affair at Pere Marquette's had seen MacLeod's
Settlement empty of men. Each one following his own hope and fancy
they had gone into the mountains, heading toward the north as Drennen
had headed two weeks before, some following the main trail for a matte