While all Minóok was "jollying" the Woodworth men, Maudie made one of her sudden raids out of the Gold Nugget. She stood nearly up to the knees of her high rubber boots in the bog of "Main Street," talking earnestly with the Colonel. Keith and the Boy, sitting on a store box outside of the saloon, had looked on at the fun over the timid cheechalkos, and looked on now at Maudie and the Colonel. It crossed the Boy's mind that they'd be putting up a josh on his pardner pretty soon, and at the thought he frowned.
Keith had been saying that the old miners had nearly all got "squawed." He had spoken almost superstitiously of the queer, lasting effect of the supposedly temporary arrangement.
"No, they don't leave their wives as often as you'd expect, but in most cases it seems to kill the pride of the man. He gives up all idea of ever going home, and even if he makes a fortune, they say, he stays on here. And year by year he sinks lower and lower, till he's farther down in the scale of things human than his savage wife."
"Yes, it's awful to think how the life up here can take the stiffening out of a fella."
He looked darkly at the two out there in the mud. Keith nodded.
"Strong men have lain down on the trail this winter and cried." But it wasn't that sort of thing the other meant. Keith followed his new friend's glowering looks.
"Yes. That's just the kind of man that gets taken in."
"What?" said the Boy brusquely.
"Just the sort that goes and marries some flighty creature."
"Well," said his pardner haughtily, "he could afford to marry 'a flighty creature.' The Colonel's got both feet on the ground." And Keith felt properly snubbed. But what Maudie was saying to the Colonel was: