Sunday, after church, I saw the parson.
The two had not been to him. Only
that afternoon the mountaineer was
on the bridge with another woman,
hideously rouged and with scarlet ribbons
fluttering from her bonnet. Passing
on by the shanty, I saw the Malungian
talking to the girl. She apparently
paid no heed to him until, just as he
was moving away, he said something
mockingly, and with a nod of his
head back towards the bridge. She
did not look up even then, but her
face got hard and white, and, looking
back from the road, I saw her slipping
through the bushes into the dry bed of
the creek, to make sure that what the
half-breed told her was true.

The two men were working side by
side on the railroad when I saw them
again, but on the first pay-day the doctor
was called to attend the Malungian,
whose head was split open with
a shovel. I was one of two who went
out to arrest his assailant, and I had
no need to ask who he was. The
mountaineer was a devil, the foreman
said, and I had to club him with a
pistol-butt before he would give in.