They had come to the Pipi field when it was languishing. From the moment
of their coming its luck changed; it became prosperous. They conquered
the Valley each after his kind. The Honourable--he was always called
that--mastered its resources by a series of "great lucks," as Pierre
termed it, had achieved a fortune, and made no enemies; and but two
months before the day whose incidents are here recorded, had gone to the
coast on business. Shon had won the reputation of being a "white man,"
to say nothing of his victories in the region of gallantry. He made no
wealth; he only got that he might spend. Irishman-like he would barter
the chances of fortune for the lilt of a voice or the clatter of a pretty
foot.

Pierre was different. "Women, ah, no!" he would say, "they make men
fools or devils."

His temptation lay not that way. When the three first came to the Pipi,
Pierre was a miner, simply; but nearly all his life he had been something
else, as many a devastated pocket on the east of the Rockies could bear
witness; and his new career was alien to his soul. Temptation grew
greatly on him at the Pipi, and in the days before he yielded to it he
might have been seen at midnight in his but playing solitaire. Why he
abstained at first from practising his real profession is accounted for
in two ways: he had tasted some of the sweets of honest companionship
with the Honourable and Shon, and then he had a memory of an ugly night
at Pardon's Drive a year before, when he stood over his own brother's
body, shot to death by accident in a gambling row having its origin with
himself. These things had held him back for a time; but he was weaker
than his ruling passion.

The Pipi was a young and comparatively virgin field; the quarry was at