The groups that kept to themselves cast appraising eyes on the cow-puncher and then turned them away. They pointedly returned to their own affairs as though to say that, however strange, the advent of this girl accompanied by the lean rider, was none of their business. Again spoke experience and the wariness born of it. But the tenderfeet, the drunken roisterers, were of different clay. A chorus of shouts addressed to "Sister" bade her step up and have a drink. A wit, in a falsetto scream, asked if he might have the next dance. Jokes, or what passed in that crew for them, flew thickly, growing more ribald and suggestive as the girl stood, indifferent, and looked about her. Then Sucatash strode between her and the group near the bar from which most of the noise emanated. He hitched his belt a bit and faced them truculently. "You-all had better shut up," he announced in a flat voice. His words brought here and there a derisive echo, but for the most part the mirth died away. The loudest jibers turned ostentatiously back to the bar and called for more liquor. The few hardy ones who would have carried on their ridicule felt that sympathy had fled from them, and muttered into silence. Yet half of the crew carried weapons hung in plain sight, and others no doubt were armed, although the tools were not visible, while Sucatash apparently had no weapon. Behind the fervid comradeship and affection, the men were strangers each to the other. None knew whom he could trust; none dared to strike lest the others turn upon him. At one of the rude tables not far from the entrance, sat three men. They had a bottle of pale and poisonous liquor before them from which they took frequent and deep drinks. They talked loudly, advertising their presence above the quieter groups. One or two men stood at the table, examining a heap of dirty particles of crushed rock spread upon the boards. They would look at it, finger it and then pass on, generally without other comment than a muttered word or two. But the three seated men, one of whom was the gray, weasel-faced Jim Banker, boasted loudly, and profanely calling attention to the "color" and the exceeding richness of the ore. Important, swaggering, and braggart, they assumed the airs of an aristocracy, as of men set apart and elevated by success. Outside, in the lull occasioned by Solange's dramatic entrance, noises of the camp could be heard through the flimsy walls. Far down the canyon faint shouts could be heard. Some one was calling to animals of some sort, apparently. A faint voice, muffled by snow, raised a yell. "H'yar comes the fust dog sled in from the No'th," he cried. "That's the sour doughs for yuh! He's comin' _right_!" They could hear the faint snarls and barks of dogs yelping far down the canyon. Then the noise swelled up again and drowned the alien sounds.