Cuter grinned craftily: "D'ye ever hear tell of a double-slotted box? Well, I've got one, an'——"
Brent interrupted him with a short laugh: "What you mean is that because I've got the reputation for being square, you want to use me for a decoy, and when they come in, rob them on a percentage."
"Well, that's—er—talkin' it out kind of plain——"
"You can go to hell!" exclaimed Brent, "and that's talking it out kind of plain, too."
Cuter laughed: "Don't git sore about it. Business is business, an' I'm into it to git the money,
one way an' another. If you don't want to deal, how about goin' behind the bar? That's a square enough game." He paused and grinned. "An' I wouldn't mind fer onct havin' someone handlin' my dust that I wouldn't feel like friskin' every time he went out the door to see how much of it had stuck to him."
And so Brent began tending bar in the notorious "Klondike Palace," and Kitty, as she faced him for the first time with her dancing partner and called for a drink, addressed him in words that to her partner meant nothing: "Your toboggan is going good, now—ain't it, Ace-In-The-Hole? You're most there, now—most to the bump that lays at the end of the trail." And Brent served the drinks, and answered nothing.
The "Klondike Palace" was the wildest and most notorious of all the dives of the big camp. Unlike Stoell's and "The Nugget," everything downstairs was in one big room. The bar occupied a whole side, the gambling tables and devices were in the rear, and the remainder of the wide floor space was given over to dancing. At the rear of the bar a flight of stairs led upward to the rooms of the painted women.
And it was concerning one of these painted women that, three weeks later, Brent had his first "run in" with Cuter Malone. It was bitter cold and snowing thickly, and Brent, with lowered head, was boring through the white smother on his way
to work. He paused in the light that shone dully through the heavily frosted windows of Malone's and was about to push open the door, when from the thick darkness around the side of the building he heard a woman scream. It was a sharp, terrible scream, that ended in a half-muffled shriek. And without an instant's hesitation, Brent dashed around the corner. The "Klondike Palace" was located well upon the edge of the big camp, beyond it being only a few scattered cabins. Scarcely fifty feet from the street he came upon a man standing over a woman who was cowering in the snow. Neither saw him, and even as he looked the man struck with a coiled dog whip. Again the woman screamed, and the man jumped upon her and started to kick her first with one foot then with the other as she lay in the snow. Like an avalanche Brent hurled himself upon the man, his fist catching him squarely upon the side of the head and sending him sprawling. Without waiting for him to get up, Brent jerked the woman to her feet and pushed her toward the street. He saw then that she was one of the girls who roomed over Malone's, and that she was clad in the thinnest of silk stockings, and the flimsiest of semi-transparent gowns. One of her high-heeled slippers had been lost in the snow. Scarce able to stand, the girl staggered whimpering toward the light. Turning upon the man who had regained his feet Brent found himself looking into the muzzle of a forty-five. So close was the man