wouldn't touch the case."

"It was a dirty deal, but you better forget it."

"I'll try," the girl promised. "But I don't forget easily."

Laughing Bill's rejection of Ponatah's offer of marriage did not in
the least affect their friendly relations. She continued to visit the
cabin, and not infrequently she reverted to the forbidden topic, only
to meet with discouragement.

Doctor Thomas had opened an office, of course, but business was light
and expenses heavy. Supplies were low in Nome and prices high; coal,
for instance, was a hundred dollars a ton and, as a result, most
of the idle citizens spent their evenings---but precious little
else--around the saloon stoves. When April came Laughing Bill
regretfully decided that it was necessary for him to go to work. The
prospect was depressing, and he did not easily reconcile himself to
it, for he would have infinitely preferred some less degraded and
humiliating way out of the difficulty. He put up a desperate battle
against the necessity, and he did not accept the inevitable until
thoroughly convinced that the practice of medicine and burglary could
not be carried on from the same residence without the risk of serious
embarrassment to his benefactor.

However, to find employment in a community where there were two men to
one job was not easy, but happily--or unhappily--Bill had a smattering
of many trades, and eventually there came an opening as handy-man at a
mine. It was a lowly position, and Bill had little pride in it, for
he was put to helping the cook, waiting on table, washing dishes,