Her rouged lips were smiling.

Even at that distance her black eyes sparkled like diamonds.

She had evidently just finished taking up a collection, for she was fastening the cord of a silken purse about her neck.

In another moment she bestrode the bear, the crowd fell apart, and as the onlookers broke into a roar of applause the big beast lumbered slowly up the street with its rider.
"One of Culver Rann's friends," said Blackton _sotto voce_, as he drove on.
"She takes in a hundred a night if she makes a cent!" [Illustration: A slim, exquisitely formed woman in shimmering silk was standing beside a huge brown bear.

In another moment she bestrode the bear, and the big beast lumbered up the street with its rider.] Blackton's big log bungalow was close to the engineers' camp half a mile distant from the one lighted street and the hundreds of tents and shacks that made up the residential part of the town.