Motionless and trying to check her sobs, the Girl remained where he had left her; but a few minutes later, when Nick entered, all trace of her tears had disappeared.

“Nick,” said she, all smiles now, “run over to The Palmetto restaurant an’ tell ’em to send me up two charlotte rusks an’ a lemming turnover—­a good, big, fat one—­jest as quick as they can—­right up to the cabin for supper.”

“He says I have the face of an angel,” is what the Girl repeated over and over again to herself when perched up again on the poker table after the wondering barkeeper had departed on her errand, and for a brief space of time her countenance reflected the joy that Johnson’s parting words had imprinted on her heart.  But in the Girl’s character there was an element too prosaic, and too practical, to permit her thoughts to dwell long in a region lifted far above the earth.  It was inevitable, therefore, that the notion should presently strike her as supremely comic and, quickly leaping to the floor, she let out the one word which, however adequately it may have expressed her conflicting emotions, is never by any chance to be found in the vocabulary of angels in good standing.

IX.

Notwithstanding that The Palmetto was the most pretentious building in Cloudy, and was the only rooming and eating house that outwardly asserted its right to be called an hotel, its saloon contrasted unfavourably with its rival, The Polka.  There was not the individuality of the Girl there to charm away the impress of coarseness settled upon it by the loafers, the habitual drunkards and the riffraff of the camp, who were not tolerated elsewhere.  In short, it did not have that certain indefinable something which gave to The Polka Saloon an almost homelike appearance, but was a drab, squalid, soulless place with nothing to recommend it but its size.

In a small parlour pungent at all times with the odour of liquor,—­but used only on rare occasions, most of The Palmetto’s patrons preferring the even more stifling atmosphere of the bar-room,—­the Wells Fargo Agent had been watching and waiting ever since he had left The Polka Saloon.  On a table in front of him was a bottle, for it was a part of Ashby’s scheme of things to solace thus all such weary hours.

Although a shrewd judge of women of the Nina Micheltorena type and by no means unmindful of their mercurial temperament, Ashby, nevertheless, had felt that she would keep her appointment with him.  In the Mexican Camp he had read the wild jealousy in her eyes, and had assumed, not unnaturally, that there had been scarcely time for anything to occur which would cause a revulsion of feeling on her part.  But as the moments went by, and still she did not put in an appearance, an expression of keen disappointment showed itself on his face and, with mechanical regularity, he carried out the liquid programme, shutting his eyes after each drink for moments at a time yet, apparently, in perfect control of his mind when he opened them again; and it was in one of these moments that he heard a step outside which he correctly surmised to be that of the Sheriff.