Читать книгу Timber-Wolf онлайн

30 страница из 95

"He's that sort," conceded Deveril. "He plays a big game and all the time has a shrewd eye for the little bets. By the way, do you feel entirely comfortable there?"

Her eyes drifted to a meeting with his.

"What do you mean?"

"There's as tough a crowd there and spread all over town as I ever saw. Are you alone?"

"Yes. Quite."

"You don't mean to say that you, a young girl and not overused to hardship, from the look of you, are up here to mix into such a scrimmage as may be pulled off? To match your wits and your grit and your endurance against the kind of men who go hell-raising into a new gold strike?"

She tilted back her head against the door-jamb and looked up, straight into his eyes. Thus he saw her chin brought forward prominently. It was delicately turned and joined, softly curving, a full feminine throat; and yet it was a chin which bespoke character and stubbornness.

"When men go rushing after gold," she said quietly, "more likely than not they go with empty pockets if not empty stomachs. There is always a chance, in a new mining-camp, for one who has a little money. A chance to stake a miner, going shares; and always, of course, the chance to stake one's own claim."