Schoville,
or chum with Frona? Don't you see? Will you escort her, in daylight,
down the public street?"
"Will you?" Vance demanded.
"Ay," the colonel replied, unhesitatingly, "and with pleasure."
"And so will I; but--" He paused and gazed gloomily into the fire.
"But see how she is going on with St. Vincent. As thick as thieves
they are, and always together."
"Puzzles me," Trethaway admitted. "I can grasp St. Vincent's side of
it. Many irons in the fire, and Lucile owns a bench claim on the
second tier of French Hill. Mark me, Corliss, we can tell infallibly
the day that Frona consents to go to his bed and board,--if she ever
does consent."
"And that will be?"
"The day St. Vincent breaks with Lucile."
Corliss pondered, and the colonel went on.
"But I can't grasp Lucile's side of it. What she can see in St.
Vincent--"
"Her taste is no worse than--than that of the rest of the women," Vance
broke in hotly. "I am sure that--"
"Frona could not display poor taste, eh?" Corliss turned on his heel
and walked out, and left Colonel Trethaway smiling grimly.
Vance Corliss never knew how many people, directly and indirectly, had
his cause at heart that Christmas week. Two men strove in particular,
one for him and one for the sake of Frona. Pete Whipple, an old-timer
in the land, possessed an Eldorado claim directly beneath French Hill,
also a woman of the country for a wife,--a swarthy _breed_, not over
pretty, whose Indian mother had mated with a Russian fur-trader some
thirty years before at Kutlik on the Great Delta.
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