That Kid was certainly the most unreasonable of children! Why, she spent three-quarters of her time doing nothing but amuse him. She had got up cheerfully at an unearthly hour, walked several miles without breakfast, followed him uncomplaining through a lot of damp grass and underbrush, and now, because she wouldn't spend the rest of the day with him, he sulked. Forsooth, was she to give up all her friends, her amusements, for the sake of that boy? Molly was most impatient--with the Kid--and she became so preoccupied in pitying herself that she hardly answered Cheyenne Harry's remarks, and was a very poor companion. She deceived herself perfectly; yet in the background of her consciousness was something she did not recognize--something uncomfortable. It was an uneasiness, a heaviness, a slight feeling of guilt for something which she could not specify, quite indefinable, and therefore the more annoying. It made her feel like shaking her shoulders. There seemed no valid reason why she should not be as light-hearted as she had been a few minutes ago, for her reason saw nothing in her conduct to regret. And yet she was uneasy, as though she had done something wrong and was on the point of being found out. She could not understand it, but it was very real, and, because she could see no reason for it, it made her angry, with a sense of injustice. It was the first manifestation of another phase of heredity--the New England conscience. XXI LAFOND MAKES A FRIEND Michaïl Lafond made much less of a stir in the life of the camp than had his ward. He fitted in quietly. Behind the Little Nugget was a room and a shed. Lafond took possession of the room, and relegated Frosty to the shed. His position as proprietor of the saloon sufficiently explained his idleness, if anybody's idleness ever needed explanation in a mining camp. He seemed to do nothing, merely because he was to be seen almost any hour of the day either smoking contemplative pipes near his place or Bill Martin's, or wandering with every appearance of leisure from claim to claim in the Hills, or disappearing in the direction of Durand's cabin in the lower gulch. That was a mistake. He really did a great deal. For instance, he made himself agreeable in a cool, drawling fashion to anybody who cared to talk to him. He kept his eyes wide open, no matter where he went. He puffed as many speculations into his brain as he did smoke-clouds into the air. That was not much perhaps; yet, by the time the Chicago men came to Copper Creek, the half-breed knew just about everybody's business in that camp. The student of character never needs to ask blunt questions.