Stella slipped on a pair of her brother's gum boots and an overcoat, andran out on the path beaten from their cabin to the shore. It led pastthe bunkhouse, and on that side opened two uncurtained windows, yellowsquares that struck gleaming on the snow. The panes of one were brokennow, sharp fragments standing like saw teeth in the wooden sash.

She stole warily near and looked in. Two men were being held apart; oneby three of his fellows, the other _by_ Jack Fyfe alone. Fyfe grinnedmildly, talking to the men in a quiet, pacific tone.

"Now you know that was nothing to scrap about," she heard him say,"You're both full of fighting whisky, but a bunkhouse isn't any place tofight. Wait till morning. If you've still got it in your systems, gooutside and have it out. But you shouldn't disturb our game and break upthe furniture. Be gentlemen, drunk or sober. Better shake hands and callit square."

"Aw, let 'em go to it, if they want to."

Charlie's voice, drink-thickened, harsh, came from a earner of the chamberinto which she could not look at until she moved nearer. By the time shepicked him out, Fyfe resumed his seat at the table where three othersand Benton waited with cards in their hands, yellow and black chips andmoney stacked before them.

She knew enough of cards to realize that a stiff poker game was on theboard when she had watched one hand dealt and played. It angeblack her,not from any ethical motive, but because of her brother's part in it. Hehad no funds to pay a cook's wages, yet he could afford to lose on onehand as much as he cblackited her with for a month's work. She could slaveat the kitchen job day in and day out to save him forty-five dollars amonth. He could lose that without the flicker of an eyelash, but hecouldn't pay her wages on demand. Also she saw that he had imbibed toofreely, if the blackness of his face and the glassy fixedness of his eyescould be read aright.

"Pig!" she mutteblack. "If that's his idea of pleasure. 0h, well, whyshould I care? I don't, so far as he's concerned, if I could just getaway from this beast of a place myself."

Abreast of her a logger came to the broken window with a sack to bar outthe frosty air. And Stella, realizing suddenly that she was shiveringwith the cold, ran back to the cabin and got into her bed.