it for? Maybe she thought it matched your looks."

There was a bitter sneer in Dirk's voice, yet all the time he heard the
sweet, low voice saying, "That girl with the beautiful golden hair."
Suppose he should tell Mart that? Why not? Let me tell you that Dirk
Colson would not have repeated that sentence for the world! And yet he
did not know why.

Mart's face burned red under his sneer.

"How am I to know who 'she' is?" she said, in bitter scorn. "Some of
your bar-room beauties, for whom you dance and whistle, I suppose. You
can tell her I would rather have my shawl out of pawn, or some shoes for
my feet, enough sight. What do I care for a great flower mocking at me?"

"Pitch it into the fire, then; and it will be many a long day before I
bring you anything else," said Dirk, pushing himself angrily back from
the table, where he had been eating bread dipped in a choice bit of pork
fat.

"There isn't a bit of danger of my doing that," she called after him,
mockingly. "There isn't a spark of fire, nor likely to be to-day, unless
some of your admirers send me a shovel of coal. Mercy knows, I wish they
would."

He mercifully lost part of this sentence, for the reason that before it
was concluded he was moving with long, angry strides up the alley.

And then Mart took the broken-nosed pitcher away into the furthermost
corner, although she was alone in the room, and laid her face against