et by the bed in the inner room. Narrow
curtains had also been nailed up beside the window, and altogether the
cabin presented a luxurious appearance.

"This is quite magnificent," remarked Talbot, strolling about with an
admiring air.

"D'ye think so?" replied Stephen in a pleased tone, lifting a flushed
face from his tacks and sitting back on his boot heels. "She's awfully
handsome, isn't she? Say, it's strange to come to a hole like this and
meet the handsomest girl you've ever seen!"

"She is very handsome," assented Talbot, sitting down by the stove and
stretching out his frozen feet before it. He was in the other room, but
close to the open door leading into the bedroom, and facing Stephen as
he sat on the floor with the screw of tacks by his side that had been
paid for in gold.

"And good, too, eh? good at heart, don't you think? Only not exactly
religious, of course," he continued.

"No, she's not very religious," returned Talbot, with the dry, hard tone
in his voice that his subordinates knew and hated.

"But it's not every one who says, 'Lord, Lord, that shall enter the
kingdom of heaven,'" quoted Stephen; "you remember, Christ said that,"
he pursued in an anxious tone, peering up at the other for
encouragement.

Talbot gave his slight, quiet laugh.

"You've got the handsomest girl in the place," he said, "and a very
nice, charming one, too. I don't see what more you want."

To his strong, determined character this perpetual straining after a
religion that was cast to the winds first at the temptation of gold, and
then at a saloon-keeper's daughter's smile, was rather contemptible.

"And 'there's more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth,' etc.,"
Stephen continued, anxious to persuade himself into a comfortable frame
of mind.

"Has Miss Poniatovsky repented?" asked Talbot, still more dryly.

"Why, yes; I told you all she said. She won't gamble any more."

Talbot was silent; through his mind was running a line of Latin to the
effect that wool once dyed scarlet can never recover its former tint,
but he said nothing.

It did not take Katrine long to prepare for her wedding. There was no
such thing as buying a trousseau in Dawson. She gathered together her
coarse woollen underclothes, her stout short dresses, and thick boots,
and packed them in two flat cases, such as can be strapped to a burro's
side, and these were to be all she would take up to the cabin in the
gulch besides her wealth