But the next moment there had flashed through her mind a new thought concerning him.  She came out from behind the bar and confronted him with the question: 

“Look ‘ere, you ain’t one o’ them exhorters from the Missionaries’ Camp, are you?”

The road agent smiled.

“My profession has its faults,” he acknowledged, “but I am not an exhorter.”

But still the Girl was nonplussed, and eyed him steadily for a moment or two.

“You know I can’t figger out jest exactly what you are?” she admitted smilingly.

“Well, try . . .” he suggested, slightly colouring under her persistent gaze.

“Well, you ain’t one o’ us.”

“No?”

“Oh, I can tell—­I can spot my man every time.  I tell you, keepin’ saloon’s a great educator.”  And so saying she plumped herself down in a chair and went on very seriously now:  “I dunno but what it’s a good way to bring up girls—­they git to know things.  Now,” and here she looked at him long and earnestly, “I’d trust you.”

Johnson was conscious of a guilty feeling, though he said as he took a seat beside her: 

“You would trust me?”

The Girl nodded an assent and observed in a tone that was intended to be thoroughly conclusive: 

“Notice I danced with you to-night?”

“Yes,” was his brief reply, though the next moment he wondered that he had not found something more to say.

“I seen from the first that you were the real article.”

“I beg your pardon,” he said absently, still lost in thought.

“Why, that was a compliment I handed out to you,” returned the Girl with a pained look on her face.

“Oh!” he ejaculated with a faint little smile.

Now the Girl, who had drawn up her chair close to his, leaned over and said in a low, confidential voice: 

“Your kind don’t prevail much here.  I can tell—­I got what you call a quick eye.”

As might be expected Johnson flushed guiltily at this remark.  No different, for that matter, would have acted many a man whose conscience was far clearer.

“Oh, I’m afraid that men like me prevail—­prevail, as you say,—­almost everywhere,” he said, laying such stress on the words that it would seem almost impossible for anyone not to see that they were shot through with self-depreciation.

The Girl gave him a playful dig with her elbow.

“Go on!  What are you givin’ me!  O’ course they don’t . . .!” She laughed outright; but the next instant checking herself, went on with absolute ingenuousness:  “Before I went on that trip to Monterey I tho’t Rance here was the genuine thing in a gent, but the minute I kind o’ glanced over you on the road I—­I seen he wasn’t.”  She stopped, a realisation having suddenly been borne in upon her that perhaps she was laying her heart too bare to him.  To cover up her embarrassment, therefore, she took refuge, as before, in hospitality, and rushing over to the bar she called to Nick to come and serve Mr. Johnson with a drink, only to dismiss him the moment he put his head through the door with:  “Never mind, I’ll help Mr. Johnson m’self.”  Turning to her visitor again, she said:  “Have your whisky with water, won’t you?”