mism soured him, and men began to shun him because of the evil
that seemed to follow in his steps.

"I've been rainbow-chasin' forty years," he said, "and never caught
nothin' but cramps and epidemics and inflammations. I'm the only miner
in Alaska that never made a discovery of gold and never had a creek
named after him."

"Is that how you got your name?" asked Runnion.

"It is. I never was no good to myself nor nobody else. I just occupied
space. I've been the vermifuge appendix of the body politic; yes,
worse'n that--I've been an appendix with a seed in it. I made myself
sore, and everybody around me, but I'm at the bat now, and don't you
never let that fact escape you."

"How are you going to spend your money?" inquired Stark.

"I'm goin' to eat it up! I've fed on dried and desiccated and other
disastrous and dissatisfactory diets till I'm all shrivelled up inside
like a dead puff-ball; now it's me for the big feed and the long drink.
I'm goin' to 'Frisco and get full of wasteful and exorbitant grub, of
one kind and another, like tomatters and French vicious water."

Poleon Doret laughed with the others; he was bubbling with the spirits
of a boy whose life is clean, for whom there are no eyes in the black
dark that lies beyond a camp-fire, and for whom there are no
unforgettable faces in its smoke. When Lee fell silent the trader and
Stark resumed their talk, which was mainly of California, it seemed to
the Frenchman, who also noted that it was his friend who subtly shaped
the topics. In time their stories revived his memory of the
conversation in the birch grove that morning, and when there occurred a
lapse in the talk he said:

"Say, John, w'at happen' to dat gal we was talkin' 'bout dis mornin'?"

Gale shook his head and turned again to his companion, but the young
man's mind was bent on its quest, and he continued:

"Dat was strange tale, for sure."

"What was it?" questioned Runnion.

"John was tell 'bout a feller he knowed w'at marry a good gal jus' to
mak' her bad lak' hese'f."

"How's that?" inquired Stark, turning curiously upon the old man; but
Gale knocked the ashes from his pipe and replied:

"Oh, it's a long story--happened when I was in Washington State."

Poleon was about to correct him--it was California, he had said--when
Gale arose, remarking sleepily that it was time to turn in if they
wished to get any rest before the mosquitoes got bad again, then
sauntered away from the fire an