d them
aside and went into the room of death, walking like a strong man. A
candle guttering beside the open window betrayed the utter nakedness of
the place. With one movement of his great, bony hands he ripped the
planks of the bed asunder and stared downward. Then he turned to the
east and, raising his arms above his head, gave a terrible cry. He began
to sway, and even as the doctor leaped to save him he fell with a crash.

It was Nicholas who told the priest that the French doctor would not let
them move him; for he lay upon his face at the feet of the San Blas
woman, his arms flung outward like the arms of a cross.

THE WAG-LADY

Her real name was June--well, the rest doesn't matter; for no one ever
got beyond that point. It was the Scrap Iron Kid who first bore news of
her coming to the Wag-boys. Knowing him for a poet, they put down his
perfervid description as the logical outpouring of a romantic spirit.

Reddy summed it up neatly by saying, "The Kid has fell for another
quilt, that's all."

"I 'ain't fell for no frill," the Kid stoutly declared. "I've saw too
many to lose me out. This gal's a thoroughbred."

"Another recruit for Simons, I suppose," Llewellyn yawned. "I'll drop in
at the theater and look her over."

"An' she ain't no actor, neither," Scrap Iron declared. "She's goin' to
start a hotel."

"Bah! If she's as good-looking as you claim, some Swede will marry her
before she can buy her dishes."

"Sure! They must all pull something like that to start with," said the
Dummy, who was a woman-hater; "then when you've played 'em straight they
h'ist the pirate's flag and go to palmin' percentage checks in some
dance-hall."

But again the idealistic Scrap Iron Kid came stubbornly to the defense
of the new-comer; and the argument was growing warm when Thomasville and
the Swede entered with two caddies of tobacco which they had managed to
acquire during the confusion at the water-front, thus ending the
discussion.

There were six of the Wag-boys, six as bold and unscrupulous gentlemen
as the ebb and swirl of the Northern gold rush had left stranded beneath
the rim of the Arctic, and they had joined forces, drawn as much,
perhaps, by their common calling as by the facilities thus afforded for
perfecting any alibis that a long and lonesome winter might render
necessary. Nor is it quite correct to state that they were stranded; for
it takes more than the buffets of a stormy fate to strand