n him.
For that infinitesimal space of time he was to all purposes a
frightened tiger filled with rage and terror at the apprehension of the
trap. Had he been no more than a savage, he would have leapt wildly
from the place or else sprung upon her and destroyed her. But in that
same instant there stirred in him the generations of discipline by
which man had become an inadequate social animal. Tact and sympathy
strove with him, and he smiled with his eyes into the Virgin's eyes as
he said:--

"You-all go and get some grub. I ain't hungry. And we'll dance some
more by and by. The night's young yet. Go to it, old girl."

He released his arm and thrust her playfully on the shoulder, at the
same time turning to the poker-players.

"Take off the limit and I'll go you-all."

"Limit's the roof," said Jack Kearns.

"Take off the roof."

The players glanced at one another, and Kearns announced, "The roof's
off."

Elam Harnish dropped into the waiting chair, started to pull out his
gold-sack, and changed his mind. The Virgin pouted a moment, then
followed in the wake of the other dancers.

"I'll bring you a sandwich, Daylight," she called back over her
shoulder.

He nodded. She was smiling her forgiveness. He had escaped the
apron-string, and without hurting her feelings too severely.

"Let's play markers," he suggested. "Chips do everlastingly clutter up
the table....If it's agreeable to you-all?"

"I'm willing," answered Hal Campbell. "Let mine run at five hundred."

"Mine, too," answered Harnish, while the others stated the values they
put on their own markers, French Louis, the most modest, issuing his at
a hundred dollars each.

In Alaska, at that time, there were no rascals and no tin-horn
gamblers. Games were conducted honestly, and men trusted one another.
A man's word was as good as his gold in the blower. A marker was a
flat, oblong composition chip worth, perhaps, a cent. But when a man
betted a marker in a game and said it was worth five hundred dollars,
it was accepted as worth five hundred dollars. Whoever won it knew
that the man who issued it would redeem it with five hundred dollars'
worth of dust weighed out on the scales. The markers being of
different colors, there was no difficulty in identifying the owners.
Also, in that early Yukon day, no one dreamed of playing table-stakes.
A man was good in a game for all that he possessed, no matter where his
possessions were or what wa