rse
her! She sits there, and the devil sits behind her, a-playing for her, I
know; but she'd better look out--you don't play with that partner long."

"The 'Cock-pit.' That's on the other side, isn't it, away from the
river?" Talbot's heart sank a little as he recognized the name of the
worst den for gambling in the whole town.

"Go down here, and turn to your left. Any one will tell you where the
'Cock-pit' is," said the girl, with a hollow laugh.

Then she lingered in the light, and looked at Talbot wistfully. He put
some money into her hand. "Go into the warmth," he said kindly, "and get
yourself something."

Then he turned back into the saloon to find Stephen. He met him, having
broken away at last from the fatherly advice of the Pole, and brushing
the front of his coat down with his hand. He was very flushed and angry.

"You'd better waste no more time," remarked Talbot, calmly. "She is down
at the 'Cock-pit,' playing."

Stephen gasped. "How did you find out that?" he asked.

"I've just been told by one of the habitues. Come along at once." Both
the men went out, and Talbot, following the girl's directions, marched
on decidedly, scarcely noticing Stephen's questions, which he could not
answer.

"I don't know," he said, for the fiftieth time, to Stephen's last absurd
query as to how long she had been there.

The houses became poorer and shabbier as they walked. Even in log-cabins
there is a great difference marked between the respectable and the
disreputable. And the figures that passed them from time to time, though
more rarely here in this quarter, looked of the toughest, most
cut-throat class.

"How can she like to come here alone?" exclaimed Stephen, with a
shudder. "I wonder she is not afraid. I'm surprised she has not come to
some harm long ago."

Talbot smiled to himself inside his fur collar and said nothing. The
girl's absolute fearlessness was the point which he admired most in her
character, and the immunity from danger seemed in her case, as in
others, the natural accompaniment of it. Fortune is said to favour the
brave. Misfortune certainly seems to spare them.

"I think this is the place," said Talbot at last, and they stopped
before a large, but old and dirty-looking cabin. It was sunk beneath the
usual level of the ground, and reached by some crooked, slippery steps.
At the foot of these steps was a sort of yard, which you had to cross
before reaching the cabin door itself. What was in