When the faint grey light of morning came creeping into the low and narrow room, which was not very early, as the nights now were far longer than the days, Talbot was the first of the sleepers to awake. He refilled the stove, which had burned down in the long night hours, and then let himself out.
When he returned Bill and the other men were all stirring, and Stephen sitting up on his trestle rubbing his red and weary-looking eyes.
"Well, pardner, what are you going to do to-day?" he asked a few minutes later, when they had the cabin to themselves for a moment.
"Going to do?" replied Talbot in astonishment, looking up from turning the coffee into the coffee-pot, according to Bill's orders. "Why, if we collect together all the stores we want, and get back to the diggings this afternoon, we shall have about enough to do."
"Oh, I meant about the girl."
"What girl?" queried Talbot, now standing still and staring Stephen in the face.
"The girl you danced with last night—the saloon-keeper's daughter, Katrine Poniatovsky—do you want any more identification?" returned Stephen, sarcastically, opening his heavy lids a little wider.
"Well, what about her?" returned Talbot, looking at him expectantly.
"Oh, well, I didn't know; I thought perhaps we wouldn't go back to-day, that's all," answered Stephen, rather sheepishly.
To his sympathetic, impulsive nature, open to every new impression, easily distracted like the butterfly which may be caught by the tint of any chance flower in its path, the incident of last night was much. To Talbot, self-concentrated, determined, and absorbed, it was nothing. He looked at his friend now with something like contempt.