make mind him. She was not wholly contemptuous, however. She
had felt vaguely the meaning of his politeness and deference. She
was puzzled and pleased, she scarcely knew why.

"He was mighty accomodatin'," she thought. But whut," she asked
herself as she rode slowly homeward-" whut did he take off his hat
fer

II

LIGHTS twinkled from every cabin as Clayton passed through the
camp. Outside the kitchen doors, miners, bare to the waist, were
bathing their blackened faces and bodies, with children, tattered
and unclean, but healthful, playing about them; within, women in
loose gowns, with sleeves unrolled and with disordered hair,
moved like phantoms through clouds of savory smoke. The
commissary was brilliantly lighted. At a window close by
improvident miners were drawing the wages of the day, while their
wives waited in the store with baskets unfilled. In front of the
commissary a crowd of negroes were talking, laughing, singing,
and playing pranks like children. Here two, with grinning faces,
were squared off, not to spar, but to knock at each other's tattered
hat; there two more, with legs and arms indistinguishable, were
wrestling; close by was the sound of a mouth-harp, a circle of
interested spectators, and, within, two dancers pitted against each
other, and shuffling with a zest that labor seemed never to affect.

Immediately after supper Clayton went to his room, lighted his
lamp, and sat down to a map he was tracing. His room was next
the ground, and a path ran near the open window. As he worked,