They had progressed through the fish to the entrée when her questions passed from his personal wanderings and adventures to his associates. She had been very anxious to get to this point, as she wanted to know what degree of intimacy he had reached with the Bonanza King. Several times already she had tried to divert the conversation toward that subject, but it had been deflected by the young man, who seemed to find less personal topics more to his taste. Now she was advancing openly upon it, inquiring about the snow-bound group at Perley’s, and awarding to any but the august name for which her ears were pricked a perfunctory attention. It was part of the natural perversity of man that Dominick should shy from it and expend valuable time on descriptions of the other prisoners.
“There was an actor there,” he said, “snowed in on his way to Sacramento, a queer-looking chap, but not bad.”
“An actor?” said Berny, trying to look interested. “What did he act?”
“Melodrama, I think. He told me he played all through the northwest and east as far as Denver. The poor chap was caught up there and was afraid he was going to lose a Sacramento engagement that I guess meant a good deal to him. He was quite interesting, been in the Klondike in the first rush and had some queer stories about the early days up there.”
Berny’s indifferent glance became bright and fixed under the steadying effect of sudden interest.
“Been in the Klondike?” she repeated. “What was his name?”
“Buford, James Defay Buford. He’d been an actor at the opera house at Dawson.”
“Buford,” said Berny, turning to place a helping of pease on the plate the Chinaman held toward her. “I never heard of him. I thought perhaps it might have been some actor I’d seen play. I’d like to know an actor in private life. They must be so different.”
She ladled a second spoonful of pease on to her own plate, and as she began to eat them, said,
“It must have been interesting having the Cannons up there. When I read in the paper that they were up at Antelope too, I was awfully glad because I thought it would be such a good thing for you to get to know the old man well, as you would, snowed in that way together.”