came to her again now the Bussard's words in which he had paid her
tribute on that morning long ago, and with which he had introduced
her to a shrunken form that lay upon a dirty cot in the barefloored
room:

"Meet de moll I was tellin' youse about, Mag. She's white - all de
way up. She's white, Mag; she's a white moll - take it from me."

The White Moll!

The firm little chin came suddenly upward; but into the dark eyes
unbidden came a sudden film and mist. Her father's health had been
too far undermined, and he bad been unable to withstand the shock
of the operation, and he had died in the hospital. There weren't
any relatives, except distant ones on her mother's side, somewhere
out in California, whom she had never seen. She and her father
had been all in all to each other, chums, pals, comrades, since her
mother's death many years ago. She had gone everywhere with him
save when the demands of her education had necessarily kept them
apart; she had hunted with him in South America, ridden with him
in sections where civilization was still in the making, shared the
crude, rough life of mining camps with him - and it had seemed as
though her life, too, had gone out with his.

She brushed her hand hastily across her eyes. There hadn't been
any friends either, apart from a few of her father's casual
business acquaintances; no one else - except the Bussard. It was
very strange! Her reward for that one friendly act had come in a
manner little expected, and it had come very quickly. She had
sought and found a genuine relief from her own sorrow in doing