ed,
and every one's nerves got edgy. Marcia was unpleasantly silent, except
when Macartney was there, when she sat in his pocket and they talked low
like lovers,--only that I was always idiotically nervous they might be
talking about Paulette Brown. That was seldom enough though, for half
the time Macartney never showed up, even for meals. He was working like
ten men over the mine, and good, solid, capable work at that. Whatever
had made poor Thompson send him to us he was worth his weight in the
gold he was getting out of La Chance in----Well, in chunks! Which was
one of the reasons he had to work so hard, and brings me to the naked
trouble at La Chance.

We were deadly short of men. Not only were Dunn and Collins dead, but
their grisly end seemed to have scared the others. Not a day went by
that three or four of them did not come for their time, chiefly rockmen
and teamsters,--for we had no ore chute at La Chance. Macartney thought
it was Dudley's fault, for nagging around all the time, and was sore
over it. Dudley said it was Macartney's, though when I pressed him he
said, too, that he did not know why. The men I spoke to before they left
just said they'd had enough of La Chance, but I could feel a sulky
underhand rebellion in the bunk house. I ran the ore hauling as best I
could, and Macartney doubled up the work in the mill. The ore-feeder
acted as crusher-man, too, the engineer was his own fireman, which, with
the battery man and the amalgamator, brought the mill staff down to
four,--but they were the best of our men. The others Macartney turned to
with the rockmen, and in the course of a fortnight he got a few more men
from somewhere he wrote to outside. They were a rough lot; not
troublesome, but the kind of rough that saves itself backache and elbow
grease. Personally, I think they would not have worked at all, if
Macartney had not put the fear of death in them. I caught him at it, and
though I did not hear what he said in that competent low voice of his,
there was no more lounging around and grinning from our new men. But the
trouble among the old men kept on till we had none of them left except
the four in the mill. It did not concern me particularly, except that I
had to work on odd jobs that should not have concerned me either, and I
did not think much about it. What I really did think about--and it put
me out of gear more than anything else at La Chance--was Paulette Brown!

It had been all very well to c