By habit, Molly spent her time after dark on a corner of the bar at the Little Nugget saloon. There she received attention. The peculiarity of her position lay in the fact that her good comradeship had dissipated constraint. The men talked and drank and gambled about as usual. It must be repeated that the girl was in no sense a romantic "idol of the camp." The miners would have been well enough pleased if she had drunk her whiskey with them as freely as they did with each other. As she did not, they merely put the fact down to personal idiosyncrasy, like Dave Williams' horror of cooked rabbit. Rough men do not demand the finer virtues, and she was treated to the reverse side of this idea. She saw what men call life. She learned the game of faro and how men act who have won or lost at it. She gained a knowledge of the strength of whiskey and what men say who have drunk of it. She heard loose speech; she saw loose conduct. All this is not nice for a young girl.
The men felt especially drawn to her because she smoked paper cigarettes gracefully. About ten o'clock she went to bed.
These few days, between her first triumphant arrival and her establishment in her new cabin, were the most care-free and happy of her stay at Copper Creek. She lived thoughtlessly, conducting herself exactly as she pleased, entertaining no regrets, conscious of no sense of wrongdoing, and therefore of no sense of guilt. Then a little incident stirred into wakefulness that fine-wrought conscience which is an element of so many natures that draw their life from New England.
XX
THE EATING OF THE APPLE
One morning Molly found herself awakened very early by the sound of whistling just outside. She opened her eyes to discover Peter, who had occupied one end of the wagon, sitting, head and ears up, listening to the same sound. The whistling was young, tuneless. Finally she peered through the crack in the canvas.
Outside, on the wagon tongue, sat the Kid patiently waiting, his little rifle across his knees, one bare foot digging away at the dust, his lips puckered to cheerful sibilance, his wide gray eyes turning every once in awhile to the canvas cover of the schooner. He discovered Molly looking out. The whistle abruptly stopped.
"Come on out, Molly," said he. "I ben waiting for you a long time."
"My! it's so awful early!" yawned Molly. "What do you want to do?"