After a while, Swiftwater poked his head from beneath the bed clothes and showed a blanched face covered with a three weeks’ old growth of black beard. I told him to dress and I would wait outside. In a few minutes Swiftwater emerged and there stood a man who had commanded hundreds of thousands of dollars in money and gold in Alaska, looking just exactly as if he had dropped from the brake-beam of a Northern Pacific freight train and had walked his way into Seattle. He was clad in a dirty sack coat, that shone like a mirror, with brown striped trousers, an old brown derby hat and shoes that were out at the sole and side. “Mrs. Beebe,” said Swiftwater in a trembling voice, “I am all in. If you will not have me arrested, but will give me a chance, I’ll soon provide for the babies and Bera.” Swiftwater pleaded as if for his life. He said that he could get money in San Francisco from a man who had offered to back him in a new scheme in the Tanana country. There was I with the two little boys and Bera all on my hands. I told Swiftwater that I would do nothing for him, but that I would forego having him put behind steel bars until I had made up my mind just what course I should take. The next night, there was a knock at our door about 3 o’clock in the morning. Bera slept in the front room of our little two-room apartment and I in the other with the babies. I went to the door--there stood Swiftwater. “Mrs. Beebe,” he said, “I have no place to sleep tonight. If you will let me lie down on the floor, so that I can get a little sleep, I will get up early tomorrow morning and not bother you.” I told Bera to come into my room and I let Swiftwater into the kitchen, where I gave him a comforter on which to lie. The next morning, after Bera had gone, I prepared Swiftwater’s breakfast. The man was in rags, almost. I made him take a bath, while I washed his underclothes, and then I went out and bought him a new pair of socks and gave him money with which to buy a new hat. The next day Swiftwater went to San Francisco on money I furnished him after I had pawned my diamonds with one of the best jewelry houses in Seattle. Why? Well, because Swiftwater had made me believe that he had another chance in the Tanana and that his friends in San Francisco, having faith in his judgment as a miner--whatever may be said of Swiftwater, he was known throughout the North as an expert miner--had raised a large sum with which to grubstake him. I will say this for Swiftwater: that he gave me a contract providing that he should pay what he owed me and give me an interest in such mines as he would locate in the Tanana country. And then he went away. CHAPTER XIII.