surprised than she if I _had_ met him there last night."

"I do not understand," I said. "Begin at the beginning, as a white man
should, and tell me the whole tale."

And Lon began. "Victor Chauvet was an old Frenchman--born in the south
of France. He came to California in the days of gold. He was a pioneer.
He found no gold, but, instead, became a maker of bottled sunshine--in
short, a grape-grower and wine-maker. Also, he followed gold
excitements. That is what brought him to Alaska in the early days, and
over the Chilcoot and down the Yukon long before the Carmack strike. The
old town site of Ten Mile was Chauvet's. He carried the first mail into
Arctic City. He staked those coal-mines on the Porcupine a dozen years
ago. He grubstaked Loftus into the Nippennuck Country. Now it happened
that Victor Chauvet was a good Catholic, loving two things in this world,
wine and woman. Wine of all kinds he loved, but of woman, only one, and
she was the mother of Marie Chauvet."

Here I groaned aloud, having meditated beyond self-control over the fact
that I paid this man two hundred and fifty dollars a month.

"What's the matter now?" he demanded.

"Matter?" I complained. "I thought you were telling the story of Flush
of Gold. I don't want a biography of your old French wine-bibber."

Lon calmly lighted his pipe, took one good puff, then put the pipe aside.
"And you asked me to begin at the beginning," he said.

"Yes," said I; "the beginning."