IX

For the workers, these Bees in a Wood Hive, the days passed swiftly.

Oh, it was wonderful how they passed! The dawn broke up night's

massed army and chased it into the Pacific Ocean, and round the quick

little world, and again fled. The days went round like a wheel, like

a saw. They came up and flowered: they died down and were not. Only

Sunday stayed like a monstrous month, an oppression as all workers

find it, an unnecessary day when every muscle and nerve ask for the

habit of big work. We cursed and groaned on Sunday, tilikum, and if

you don't like to believe it, there's no one will plug you for doing

the other thing. Sunday wasn't an Oasis, it was a desert. On Monday

it was, however, desirable: Tuesday pined for it: Wednesday yearned

for it: Thursday screamed for it: Friday sickened for it and Saturday

hallooed joyfully with it in sight. And by ten on Sunday the Workers

loathed it.

But the swift days of work were the days. They streamed past like a

mountain torrent. Even sad and sorry Pete found it so. He smote his

wedges with his maul and, lo and behold! a day was dead; and the

stars sang above the hills and the starlight gleamed on the Fraser's

shining flood. He laid his head, his cabeza, on a pillow (unwashed)

and it was day. Again it was night.

Yet for one the hours were strange and slow. She looked out from the

house on the hill-side and saw the slow sun wheel his team into the

West, as if his horses drew innumerable thousands and hundreds of the

world's big freight. Poor Jenny, now plump and sweet and beautifully

clad, and learned in the delights of hot water (of which Sam was a

kind of prophet, for he loved baths as if he were a Japanese), found

the days slow in spite of baths and clothes and cleanliness. The

poor dear pined a little, as one might who had lived wildly, for the

ruder joys of her earlier life. Things were onerous. She wanted at

certain hours to sit down, to "squat upon her hunkers" and suck at a

pipe, perhaps. A yarn with wretched Annie or Annawillee would have

been pleasing. She even thought of Pete, though she was getting very

fond of her conqueror Quin, who dominated her wonderfully. That was

her nature; for if some conqueror of Quin had come along she would

have gone with him, very likely, as a wapiti hind will follow a

conquering wapiti. And yet who can say? I cannot; for I think she

loved Quin very well indeed, though he denied her the trivial

consolations of Indian bawdry with Annie or mournful Annawillee.

Somehow I think Jenny was very good. One can't say. She grew

prettier and gentler every day, every hour. Sam admired her frankly

and was very polite. It was his nature. He told Quin quite openly

what he thought, and sometimes gave him good advice.

"My tinkee Missus heap pletty, Mista Quin," said Sam, "evely day mo'

pletty, maskee my tinkee she velly sad, hab noting to do. Missus

wantche flin, Mista Quin, t'at what she wantchee. No can lead, no

can lite, my tinkee, no can makee dless allo tim'. T'at velly sad.

No likee cookee chow-chow, she say."

He shook his head. She wanted a friend ("wantchee flin"), that was a

fact, and all Quin could do was to order her more dresses and linen

from Victoria. He got her picture-books (for, as Sam said, "she no

can lead") and talked to her about what she saw there. When he was

with her she was happy.

"I velly happy at night-time, Tchorch," she said meekly. "But

daytime velly keely, very sad."

"Tchorch" Quin picked her up in his arms and set her on his knee.

"Litty gal, I love you, tenas," he answered, mixing the lingoes.

Perhaps he did love her. Quien sabe?--as Chihuahua said about

everything uncertain.

"You love me, Tchorch?" she asked flushing, "velly much?"

"Tenas, hyu, hyu, very much indeed, little one."

"I not mind if the day is sad, then," said Jenny. She regarded him

with big sad eyes, and then looked down.

"But I not a good woman, Tchorch."

Quin frowned and grumbled.

"Damn nonsense, tenas."

But it wasn't damn nonsense to Jenny. And most especially it wasn't

so on Sundays, though on that day she had George Quin all to herself

and the greedy Mill stood quiet. On Sundays she heard the tinkling

church bells, and when the wind blew lightly from the east the sound

of distant singing came up to her as she stood at the open window.

She remembered what the good Missionary, the "kloshe leplet," had

said about goodness, and badness, and the Commandments. There were

ten of them, Jenny remembered, though she had been to no service ever

since she lived at Cultus Muckamuck's ranche.

"I velly wicked, Tchorch," she said mournfully. "I blake the

Commandments!"

"Humph," said George Quin, "don't cry about it, kiddy. I've kicked

'em all to flinders myself. If you go to Lejaub's hyas piah, I go

with you, tenas."

He kissed her. His bold and ready undertaking to go to hell with her

was really very consoling. His statement that he had broken all the

Commandments comforted her: it showed his good faith. Jenny had a

wonderfully material view of hell, and her imagination showed it to

her as a sawmill in flames. She had seen the Mill at Kamloops on

fire, that is why. Now George Quin was the Manager of the Mill and

the owner and a big strong man. She had a kind of dim notion that he

would be able to manage a good deal even in hell.

And besides she loved him really. There's no doubt about it, and

even he knew it.

The big strong brute of a man was very gentle with her, and let her

"cly" a little when she thought of the good missionary (who happened

to have been a very bad man, by the way, though many of them were

splendid) and the wood fires of the diabolical saw-mill of which

Lejaub the devil was manager.

But he never knew how her feelings worked on her when he was away,

and indeed if he had known there might not have been the trouble that

there was. And he had entirely forgotten that he had a Bible in the

house: the gift of his old mother who still lived in Vermont, far

away to the East.

The Bible was the source of all the woe that followed when a big deal

in lumber took Quin over to Victoria and kept him there three days.

He had more than half a mind to take her with him, and if her speech

hadn't betrayed her origin he would have done it like a shot. And

when he went Jenny cried as if he were going to cross the Big Salt

Chuck or the Pacific. Though her mother had been a Hydah she knew

nothing of the waters.

"I much aflaid of Pete," she thought.

But Quin gave great directions to Sam and he believed he could trust

him.

"My look see evely ting," said Sam. "Missus all light: my givee good

chow-chow, hot wata, blush dlesses, t'at all light. My no lettee

Missus go out? No, good, my no lettee."

But he played Fan-tan of course, and couldn't be expected to stay in

all the time, or to understand that the Missus was upset in her mind

about morality. And he knew nothing and cared less about the Bible.

There wasn't the making of a rice Christian in him unless rice was

very scarce indeed, and now he lived on the fat of the land of

British Columbia.

So the day after she had cried herself to sleep, she came across the

Bible.

It was not quite a family Bible, and only weighed a pound or so, but

it had a biblical cover of sullen puritanical leather which suggested

that the very bookbinder himself was of the sourest disposition, a

round-head, a kill-joy, with ethics equal to the best Scotch

morality. This binding alone, however, would have had comparatively

little effect on the childish mind of Jenny. But the book had in it

dour and savage pictures of so surprising a lack of artistic merit

that they struck her down at once, poor child. In spite of the lack

of colour the dreadful draughtsman made very effective curly-whirly

flames in a hell which was remarkably like a study of a suburban

coal-cellar, and the victims of his fire and ferocity expressed the

extremest anguish as they fried on eternal grids! Oh, horrors, but

the pictures brought back to the fearful mind of the tenas klootchman

all the dread with which the good (or bad) minister, Alexander

Mickie, had inspired her when she attended Sunday School at Kamloops

and heard him preach in Chinook. For Chinook is no more than a few

hundred words and most of them are very material. So was Mickie's

mind, whether he preached openly or drank in secret, and the hyas

piah of Lejaub, or the great fire of the Devil (Lejaub being equal to

Le Diable), was a hot wood fire to Jenny. She believed naturally

enough in Lejaub much more than in God, for her Indian blood helped

her there, or rather hindered her, and the English God was a far-off

notion to a mind not given to high abstractions.

So Jenny when she got the picture Bible sat with it in her lap and

trembled.

"I a bad woman, I go to hell; very wrong for me to love Tchorch!" was

her mind's commentary as she turned the blind pages for some other

picture.

And every now and again she turned back to the curling flames and

elaborate grids of hell. She traced in some anguished lineaments a

remote likeness to herself. Then she fell to weeping, and weeping

Sam found her. He was sympathetic. On the whole Sam was a very good

sort.

"Why you cly, Missus?"

It was in vain for her to say she wasn't crying.

"Oh, yes, you cly, Missus, but what for you cly? Mista Quin he come

back to-molla."

He might even be back that night, as Sam knew, though he would not be

till late. But Jenny sobbed and the Bible slipped from her knees

upon the floor. Sam picked it up and recognised it at once. He

snorted as he gave it her back.

"My tinkee no good lead dis," he said solemnly. "My tinkee all the

stolies in it lies, Missis. My savvy one, two, tree, piecee

Joss-pidgin-man Chinaside, what you callee leplet, my savvy Yingling

word, miss'onary, and he talkee no good. My tinkee him got wata

topside, clazy, pelton you say."

Out of this difficult hishee-hashee of words Jenny extracted the

notion that in Sam's opinion missionaries were fools, for "leplet"

and "pelton" put together mean that. She shook her head and sobbed.

"My tinkee no good makee littee Missus cly," said Sam. "T'at book

makee nicee litty gal cly allo time. My see um. No good littee gal

cly: my say it damn foolo book. Mista Quin him velly good man:

plenty chow-chow, dlesses and Sam for washee evelyting. Missus, you

no lead Bible. Him no good. Damn foolo stoly, my savvy."

But what good was it for a Chinaman to tell her that?

"Him velly good book, I tink, Sam," she said earnestly.

"My no tinkee," returned Sam.

"It belongs to Mista Quin," urged the "Missus."

"Him never lead him," said Sam triumphantly. "My putty him away and

Mista Quin him never savvy."

Perhaps that was true. But then was not "Tchorch" wicked too?

Her lips trembled and she opened the book again at the fiery picture.

"What t'at picture?" asked Sam, quite eager to see.

"It's hell," said Jenny, trembling.

"Ah," said Sam, "t'at Debelo's house. T'at all light. Wong him

velly clever man, him say Debble-Debble here all light, but only

China-side belong God. My tinkee too. Wong say one time no food, no

licee, and evelybody hungly, and makee player to Posa, allo same God,

and nex' day one foot licee all over. T'at China-side, galaw. But

my no can stay: my cookee chow-chow: Missus no cly, Debble-Debble

never take litty gal, Missus."

But the fact remained that even Sam believed the devil was in British

Columbia (and all America, of course), even if God only thought of

China. On the whole Sam's cheerful intervention did harm rather than

good. Jenny did put the book away and tried not to think of the

"hyas piah," but as the evening came on there was a gorgeous sunset

and even that brought fire to her timid mind. When it was dark she

shivered and was glad to see a light. Then she got out the book

again.

She was living a very wicked life, oh, yes, the missionaries would

say that. She was Pete's wife and was living with Tchorch! That was

very wrong, it was against the Commandments.

What ought she to do?

What was right?

If only George were back! That is what her heart said, for now she

hungered for him very bitterly, because she felt she would see him no

more. The little girl had gone so far on the burning path of

repentance. She _must_ see him no more: and what she saw in the

gloom was the glow of the Pit itself. She ran to the window and

looked down on the quiet world and the few shining lights of the

quiet city and the star-shine on the great river. But all these were

as nothing to her loneliness and her sudden fear and all the awful

threats of hell that came back to her in such an hour. She fell upon

her knees and tried to pray and found herself murmuring, "Tchorch,

dear Tchorch." He was coming back to her that night and was glad to

come back, for he had no notion, no adequate notion of what a bad man

he was. He loved the tenas klootchman, loved her far better,

perhaps, than the white woman who had scorned him because of dead

Lily's predecessors.

But Lily was now no more than a dead flower unremembered in some

spring garden. He was going back to Jenny.

She cried as she prayed to God and said "Tchorch!" George was the

little foolish woman's prayer, and it may be a good one. The name of

the Beloved is for ever a prayer, tillikum.

It was nearly ten o'clock when Sam looked in. He did not think Quin

would come now. It was late for the S.S. _Yosemite_.

"You all light, Missus?" he asked.

And she said that she was all right and Sam went away down to Wong's

shack for an hour's Fan-tan. He hoped to make a few dollars easily,

so that he could go back China-side and buy one "litty piecee waifo"

for himself so that he could have children to attend to his ashes and

his kindly paternal spirit.

But Jenny saw her spirit, her soul, her body, in the flames.

She must go back to Pete, and ask him to forgive her. He would beat

her badly, she knew, and he would tear her "dless" from her and speak

things of shame.

"I have shem," she said. She heard Sam go down the path singing a

high-pitched quavering Chinese song. When he was quite gone she

began to weep, and wept until she was ill. She stumbled blindly

round the room, and went into the bedroom and kissed things of

George's, and the very bed itself, and then went out into the

darkness. In that hour, the poor child forgot how beautifully she

was dressed. She stumbled in light shoes down the path, and as she

went she wished she were dead. For Pete would be cruel. He would

beat her and take her back.

"I'm very wicked," she said, weeping. George would be unhappy. She

turned with her empty arms outstretched to the hill above her, to the

empty house. George had been very good to her.

She passed Wong's shack. Sam was in there with half a dozen others,

and they were hard at it gambling. After Wong's came Skookum

Charlie's and then Indian Annie's. The next shack was Pete's. She

sank down in the darkness between the two shanties in a state of fear

and stupor. In front of her was shame and cruelty and behind her the

fires of hell. But she wanted to be good.

There was no light in Pete's shack. When she saw that, she hoped for

one despairing moment that he had gone away. Yet she knew that if he

had gone George would have told her. Most likely he was with Indian

Annie. He would be at least half-drunk. She felt dreadfully beaten.

There was a roar of bestial silly laughter from Indian Annie's.

From down the river almost abreast of Lulu Island there came the

sound of a steamer's whistle. It meant nothing to her and Sam did

not hear it. Annie's door opened and Annawillee ran out reeling.

She was going home to Chihuahua and had to pass Jenny, crouching on

the sawdust in silks and fine linen.

"Oh," groaned Jenny as Annawillee came along crooning in mournful

tones her old ballad that said she was "keely." When she was close

to Jenny she reeled and recovered and stood for a moment

straddle-legs. She hiccupped and in the clear darkness saw Jenny

without knowing her.

"Who you?" she hiccupped.

Then she saw who it was, and burst into idiotic laughter.

"Oh, Jenny klootchman," she screamed. And Pete came out of Annie's

to go home.

"What's that, Annawillee?" he asked in the thick voice of liquor.

"What you say, eh?"

Annawillee forgot there was money and drink in Pete's not knowing,

and she stood there laughing--laughing as if her sides would split.

"Your klootchman Jenny she come home," said Annawillee. And Jenny

groaned as Pete came running.

Before he spoke a word, he kicked her.

"You damn klootchman," he said. He took her by the hair and dragged

her along the ground while Annawillee still laughed. And Jenny

screamed.

"Where's your man now, ha?" said Pete, thickly. "I tink I kill you

now."

The _Yosemite_ came alongside her wharf as if it were bright day and

Quin leapt ashore.

As Pete dragged her, Jenny got upon her knees and fell. And again

she half-rose and again fell, and under his brutal grip of her hair

her scalp seemed a flame of agony. She was sorry she had determined

to be good and to repent. She screamed dreadfully and many heard.

Some shrugged their shoulders, for screams in Shack-Town were only

too common. Yet some came out of their houses. Among them was

Chihuahua. Indian Annie came too, and before Pete had got his wife

to his own door, there were others, among them two Chinamen from an

overcrowded shanty further up the road. And still they did not

interfere. Jenny was Pete's klootchman and she had run away. Like a

fool she had come back, and must suffer. There was none among them

that dared to interfere: for they feared a knife.

And as George Quin came ashore he heard Jenny's screams. "Another

drunken row," he said carelessly as he faced the hill to his lonely

house. He was very glad to get back home to his tenas klootchman,

for he hated loneliness. He said "poor little Jenny" as he walked.

There was now a crowd about poor Jenny, for more came running, more

Siwashes, among them Skookum Charlie, and more Chinamen. But still

no one interfered, though Annawillee shrieked even more than Jenny.

She implored Chihuahua to kill Pete. But Chihuahua booted Annawillee

and made her howl on her own account.

"She run way and come back," said Chihuahua. "If she mine I kill

her, carajo!"

And Pete started kicking Jenny. Once and again she cried out, and

then the last of all who looked on came like a fury at Pete. The

bleared and haggard and horrible old Annie was the one who had the

courage, and the only one.

"Aya, you damn Pete," she screamed. She got her claws in Pete's long

black hair and pulled him down. She was a bundle of flying rags with

a savage cat in them. If Jenny were killed she would be nothing to

Annie, but while she lived she was worth drinks. And perhaps Annie

loved the little klootchman. Who can tell?

She and Pete rolled together on the dusty road, and the onlookers

shrieked with laughter. Quin heard it as he climbed.

"The row's over," said Quin.

More came out of the huts, and this time Wong, old Wong, the

philosopher was among them. And with him came Lung and Wing, and at

last Sam. The Chinamen stood outside the circle of the Siwashes and

chattered. The first told the others that Pete had killed his wife,

and now was killing someone else. The devilish twisting bundle in

the dusty road revolved and squealed. But Annawillee howled by the

side of Jenny, who lay insensible. Skookum struck a light, and it

shone upon the poor girl. It showed her dress of scarlet, and Sam's

quick eyes saw it. He ran in quickly towards her, though the wise

Wong held him back. Chinamen never join in alien rows if they can

help it. It is wisest not to, and they have much wisdom. Skookum's

match went out. Sam lighted another and knelt beside Jenny.

"'Ullo, Chinaman," grinned Skookum, "you tink she dead, you tink

mimaloose?"

Oh, said Sam, this was Mista Quin's Missus right enough. What did

she want here? He called to Wong, who came calmly, unhurriedly. Sam

spoke to him in their own tongue, and then Sam, who was as quick to

catch as Wong was wise to suggest, cried out suddenly that the tenas

klootchman was dead. He took her in his arms and ran with her to

Wong's shack. And as he ran Pete got up from Annie, whom he had

choked into stillness. But his torn face bled and one eye was nearly

on his cheek. He kicked Annie as she lay, and then turned to where

he had left Jenny.

"Where my klootchman go?" he demanded.

They told him in a dreadful chorus that she was dead, and he

staggered back against his shack.

"Where is she?"

"Wong take her."

They believed wise old Wong a physician, for Chinamen have strange

gifts.

"I go see," said Pete.

"No, you run 'way," said Skookum urgently. He believed Jenny was

dead.

"Mus' I run?" asked Pete with a fallen jaw.

"Dey hang you, Pete," screamed Annawillee joyfully. Old Annie sat up

in the road.

"Where I go?" asked Pete. "I wis' I never see Jenny."

He burst into tears. They brought him a bottle, and told him to

"dlink." They gave him advice to go down the river, up the river, to

the Inlet, to the Serpentine, oh, anywhere from the Police.

"I go," said Pete. He drank.

"I--I--go," said Pete. He drank again, and fell and lay like a log.

"Now they catch Pete and hang him," screamed Annawillee. Annie

staggered across to him and kicked him in the face.

"Pig Pete," said Annie.

Quin came to his empty house and called to tenas Jenny. And then to

Sam. When no answer came he ran through the hall into the empty room

where the lamp was. On the floor he saw the Bible. He understood.

He quite understood.

X

There was no doubt at all in George Quin's mind as to what had

happened, and perhaps he was not wholly surprised. What did surprise

him was his own ferocious anger, and the wave of pity that even

swallowed up his wrath.

"My God!" said Quin.

There wasn't a man in the City who knew him a little but was prepared

to swear that Quin was a brute, and a devil without any feeling to

speak of. It was said that he had killed Lily, the Haida girl, when,

as a matter of fact, it was his brother, Cultus Muckamuck as the

Siwashes called him, who had done a deed like that. He had treated

Lily well. Her people said so. He had treated them well, the greedy

brutes!

Now Quin was full of pity, and of jealousy. This Bible had hurt her

poor weak mind, no doubt of that: and it had driven her back to Pete,

perhaps.

"My God," said Quin again, "where else?"

He remembered the screams he had heard coming from Shack-Town as he

landed. And as he remembered he found himself running down the hill

in the starlit gloom. He wasn't a very young man either. Quin was

nearly forty: hard and set: at times a little stiff. Now he went

recklessly.

"If Pete----"

It didn't bear thinking of, so Quin wouldn't think of it. He was

jealous, hideously jealous. He could have torn Pete asunder with his

powerful hands. He felt his nerves in a network within him, and in

his skin. They thrilled like fire.

"My poor little Jenny!"

Why, the fact was that he loved her! When one comes to think of it,

this was a monstrous discovery for him to make. He had really never

loved anyone, certainly not dead Lily, more certainly not that white

woman over in Victoria, though he thought he had. What he felt for

Jenny was a revelation; it made him a saint and a devil at once, as

passion does even the best and worst of men. And Quin had force and

fire, and bone, and muscle and a big heavy head and hands like

clip-hooks. Now passion shook him as if he were a rag in the wind.

He came down to Shack-Town, and stopped. He was hot but again he

sweated ice. He looked down the road and saw figures moving.

"Which is the shack?" he asked himself.

He went past Wong's house, where Jenny lay on a table with ten

jabbering Chinamen around her. He heard a high-low sing-song of

their chatter and cursed his boy Sam for leaving the house as he had

done.

"I'll kick the damn stuffin' out of him," said Quin savagely.

He passed Indian Annie's and saw the group beyond it, standing about

Pete's recumbent body. Skookum Charlie was almost in tears to think

that Pete would be hanged. Annie wiped her bloody face with her

skirt. Annawillee, howling curses at Pete, sat by her.

"What's all this?" said Quin, coming out of the darkness. He saw

Pete, or rather saw a body. He spoke hoarsely.

"Mista Quin, oh!" said Skookum, scrambling to his feet.

"What is it?" asked Quin again. "Kahta mamook yukwa? What do you do

here?"

"Pete him kill Jenny," screamed Annawillee. Quin staggered back.

"He, he----"

He pointed at the drunken man.

"Not mimaloose, him dlunk," said Annawillee, "Jenny with Chinaman."

Skookum led Quin, the big Tyee, to Wong's shack.

"If she's dead----" said Quin, looking towards Pete. He opened

Wong's door.

The room was eight feet by twelve by ten: it reeked of fierce tobacco

and the acrid fumes of "dope." Some of them "hit the pipe," smoked

opium. The smell was China; Quin, who had been there, knew it. With

the odours of Canton were the odours of bad oil. Three lamps ate up

the air. Quin saw a row of whitish masks about the table: some

excited, some stupid, one or two villainous. At the head of the

table was the quiet majestic head of the old philosopher Wong. He

had a great domed skull and a skin of drawn parchment over wide

bones. With a sponge he wiped blood from Jenny's face. Sam held a

bowl of water. He looked anxious and strange. And Jenny's body, in

white linen and crimson silk, fouled with sawdust and blood, lay

there quietly.

"Is she dead?" asked Quin.

The philosopher, whose shiny skin declared his love of opium, said

she was not dead.

"My tinkee she all light bymby," said Wong, "She belongy you, Tyee?"

"Turn the others out," said the Tyee, and at Wong's word they fled

out of the door, and stood in the dark jabbering about Quin having

taken Jenny.

Quin turned on Sam.

"Why did you leave the house, Sam? My tell you stop, you damn thief!"

Sam, now as pale as Jenny, threw out his hands in urgent deprecation

of Quin's anger.

"My no go out," he lied, "my stay allo tim' with Missus, maskee she

go out and my no findee. I lun down here, Mista Quin, lun queek,

findee damn Pete hurtee Missus. T'at tlue. My tellee Missus no cly:

maskee she lead Bible and cly. My no can do."

He wrung his hands. Perhaps what he said was true. Quin felt

Jenny's pulse and found it at last. He saw she breathed.

"I'll have her home," he said.

They took the door off its hinges, and Sam with the others carried

her up to the house. Wong went into town to ask the doctor to come

to Quin's at once "chop-chop," and Dr. Jupp came. He found Jenny on

the bed moaning a little.

"What's this, Quin?" asked Jupp, who knew Quin well enough.

Quin answered sullenly and told the truth.

"Tut," said Jupp, "some day you'll get knifed, Quin; why can't you

get married and leave the klootchmen alone?"

He was a white-bearded old boy, who knew how ignorant he was of

medicine. But he knew men. He went over Jenny carefully.

"Two ribs broken," he said, "and the small bone of the left arm. And

a little concussion of the brain. I think she'll do, Quin."

"Thank you," said Quin.

Between them they made her comfortable after Jupp had sent for

splints and bandages.

"She's very pretty," said Jupp, For Pete hadn't kicked her face.

"She's very pretty."

"She's as good as gold, by God!" said Quin.

"Humph," said Jupp. "I'll come in to-morrow morning early. Shall I

send you a nurse?"

"I'll sit up with her," said Quin. "You'd only send some cursed

white woman with notions."

"Maybe," said Jupp, "they frequently have 'em incurably."

Quin's face was white and hard. He stood up and looked across the

bed.

"I tell you this little girl is as good as any white woman in town,

Jupp."

Jupp took snuff habitually; he took some now.

"Who the devil said she wasn't?" he asked drily. He left the room.

It was early morning before Jenny became conscious, and even then

Quin had great trouble with her. For she was very sick. There was

no end to his patience. Nor was there any to Sam's. The boy sat

outside on the mat all night.

"My askee Missus no tellee Boss my go playee Fan-tan," he said

nervously.

At bright dawn Jenny found Quin half-dozing with his head on the

quilt under her hand. She touched his hair tenderly, and he woke up.

"Tchorch," she said feebly, with a heavenly smile, "Tchorch!"

"Yes, little girl," said George.

"I tink I no go away again, Tchorch. I no want to be good, I want to

stay with you. What you tink, Tchorch?"

The tears ran down George's face. That's what he thought.

"I'll kick that damn Pete's head in," said George to himself.

"I no want to be good. I jus' want Tchorch," said Jenny.

She closed her eyes and slept.