and in the living room d

es darker, and her curled-up eye-lashes darker still, where she sat with her head bent over some sort of sewing. And even before she looked up and I saw her eyes, the beauty of her caught me at my heart. I had never thought even my dream girl could be as lovely as she was. But there was more to her face than beauty. It was so young and sweet and gay, and-when you lo

moccasined feet that had come in on her as silently as a wolf or an Indian; with dirty, frozen clothes; and a face that the Lord knows is dark and hard at i

she guessed she had spoken to me a quarter of an hour ago in words she would probably have

lting ice fell off it and tinkled on the floor. The sharp little sound brought my wits back to me. Perhaps I had never really thought my dream girl would come true, but once I had found her I never meant to lose her. And I knew, if I cared a stra

'm Stretton, Wilbraham's partner"-which I was to the

life. For the girl of my dreams came to her feet with just that lovely, contr

some one had forgotten to send out your horse for you, and that you'd probably walk-the whole way f

less-and I would not have gone near my dream girl for a fortune. "I think I'll get clean first," I began, and found myself laughing for the first time in a week. But as I turned away I glanced back from the dark passag

any one she needed to hit out at like that. But we had a queer lot at the mine, including Dunn and Collins, a couple of educated boys who had not been educated enough to pass as mining engineers, and had been kicked out into the world by their families. It might have been either of those two star failures in the bu

see that girl again. Who under heaven she could be was past me, as well as how she came to be at La Chance. I would have been scared green lest she was the wife of some man at the mine, only she had no wedding ring on the slim lef

. I had known Marcia Wilbraham, as I had known Dudley, ever since I wore blue serge knickerbockers trimmed with white braid. She never went anywhere with Dudley. She had money of her own, and she spent it on H

r face and a smile that showed her gums. I had never liked or disliked her especially, any more than you do any girl about your own age whom you've al

of Marcia "trying a

Nicky Stretton," said she crossly. "I'm tired of always doing the s

y?" I let out. The two of the

ia smiled the ugly smile I never could stand. "I'm goi

hough I knew she would be all kinds of a nuisance if she insisted on turning out to hunt wolves. She was all but dressed for it ev

es, too?" I inquired, as we moved on down the

not caught the snap in her eyes. "She's com

idea that I had found my dream girl split to bits as if a half-ton rock had landed on it. For her to be going to marry any one was bad enough; but

fice where Dudley did his accounts-which was his name for sitting drinking all day, and never speaking to any one-and shut the door. "Look here, Nicky, if you're thinking that girl is a fri

as away from La Chance, where he and old Thompson wo

bring her out here himself, I don't know; he only hummed and hawed when I asked him. But anyhow, I met Paulette Brown, for the first time, at the station, when we started up here-she an

embering Paulette Brown's speech to me in th

ith no 'Paulette Brown' tacked on to her. I've seen her dance somewher

ly, "considering that every one danc

t," Marcia frowned, "only I can't think what! And the second thing that puzzles me about Paulette

om her, and I could have opened my mouth and

s-only what I can't understand about her is what she wants of Dudley! It isn't money, for I know he's tried to make her take it, and she wouldn't. Yet I know, too, that she hadn't

lie, but I might not have seen, if she had not spoken to me incompr

m at first; and if Dudley knows what it really is, I'm going to know too-before I'm a month older! I tell you I've seen her before, and I know there was some

re going to marry Dudley Wilbraham ten times over, she was the one girl in the world wh

s what I think she is! Don't make any mistake, Nicky; she's no chorus girl out of work. She's

, when I thought she moved like Pavlova.

ch. Wait, and you'll see. Come on; we'll be late for supper. It would have been over hou

oo aptly on Marcia's suspicions about her. But "My good heavens, I won't care what she did," I thought fiercely. My dream girl's eyes were honest, if they were deep blue lakes a man might drown his soul in, too. If she were Dudley's twice over

as drily. And over her words, clos

on. "Scott, I never knew the wolves to be coming out so early in the season!" I was thankful t

tood looking at the lighted living room at the end of the passage by the front door. "But the wolves have been round for

tween a shotgun and a rifle, and would have legged it from a fox if he had met it alone. "Marcia Wilbraham, I'll pay you fiv

I didn't mean old Thompson. He's been gone for a month, and we'v

e room myself, as you do at the lighted stage in a theatre, and I had seen only one thing in it: my dream girl-whose name might or might not be Paulette Brown, whom Dudley Wilbraham had more right to than I h

to-night. He was watching the living room door, quite palpably, and it struck me abruptly that I had not far to seek for Marcia Wilbraham's reason for staying the winter at La Chance. B

nconsciously, to the very tips of h