"It's thinner to-night."
Bill spoke from the shadow of his curtain.
"The gang?" Kars did not withdraw his gaze.
"Sure. There's just one guy I don't know. But he don't look like cutting any ice. He's half soused anyhow, with four bottles of wine on the table between him and his dame. When he's through I don't think he'll know the Elysian Fields from a steam thresher. That blond dame of his looks like rolling him for his 'poke' without a worry. He'll hit the trail for his claim to-morrow without the color of a dime."
"Which is he?" Kars demanded, with a certain interest.
"Why, right there by that table under the balcony. See that dude with the greased head, and the five dollar nosegay in his coat. There, that one with Sadie Long and the 'Princess.' Get the Princess with the cream bow and her hair trailing same as it did when she was a child forty years ago. Next that outfit."
There was deep disgust in the doctor's tones, but there was something like pity in his half-humorous eyes.
"He hasn't even cleaned himself," he went on. "Looks like he's just quit the drift bottom of a hundred foot shaft, and come right in full of pay dirt all over him. Get his outfit. If you ran his pants through a sluice-box you'd get an elegant 'color.' Guess even Pap won't stand for him if he gets his eyes around his way."
Kars offered no comment, but he was studying the half-drunken miner closely.
At that moment the orchestra struck up again. It was a two step, and for once Alec and the beautiful Maude failed to make an appearance.