“But how are we to know?” inquired Rance, likewise getting ready to leave.  “Is he an American or a Mexican?”

“To-night he’s an American, that is, he’s dressed and looks like one.  But the reward—­you swear you’re playing fair?”

“On my honour,” Ashby assured her.

The woman’s face stood clear—­cruelly clear in the light of the kerosene lamp above her head.  About her mouth and eyes there was a repellent expression.  Her mind, still working vividly, was reviewing the past; and a bitter memory prompted the words which were said however with a smile that was still seductive: 

“Try to recall, Senor Ashby, what strangers were in The Polka to-night?”

At these ominous words the men started and regarded each other questioningly.  Their keen and trained intelligences were greatly distressed at being so utterly in the dark.  For an instant, it is true, the thought of the greaser that Ashby had brought in rose uppermost in their minds, but only to be dismissed quickly when they recalled the woman’s words concerning the way that the road agent was dressed.  A moment more, however, and a strange thought had fastened itself on one of their active minds—­a thought which, although persisting in forcing itself upon the Sheriff’s consideration, was in the end rejected as wholly improbable.  But who was it then?  In his intensity Rance let his cigar go out.

“Ah!” at last he cried.  “Johnson, by the eternal!”

“Johnson?” echoed Ashby, wholly at sea and surprised at the look of corroboration in Nina’s eyes.

“Yes, Johnson,” went on Rance, insistently.  Why had he not seen at once that it was Johnson who was the road agent!  There could be no mistake!  “You weren’t there,” he explained hurriedly, “when he came in and began flirting with the Girl and—­”

“Ramerrez making love to the Girl?” broke in Ashby.  “Ye Gods!”

“The Girl?  So that’s the woman he’s after now!” Nina laughed bitterly.  “Well, she’s not destined to have him for long, I can tell you!” And with that she reached out for the bottle on the table and poured herself a small glass of whisky and swallowed it.  When she turned her lips were tightly shut over her brilliant teeth, a thousand thoughts came rushing into her brain.  There was no longer any compunction—­she would strike now and deep.  Through her efforts alone the man would be captured, and she gloried in the thought.

“Here—­here is something that will interest you!” she said; and putting her hand in her bosom drew out a soiled, faded photograph.  “There—­that will settle him for good and all!  Never again will he boast of trifling with Nina Micheltorena—­with me, a Micheltorena in whose veins runs the best and proudest blood of California!”

Ashby fairly snatched the photograph out of her hand and, after one look at it, passed it over to the Sheriff.

“Good of him, isn’t it?” sneered Nina; and then seemingly trying by her very vehemence to impress upon herself the impossibility of his ever being anything but an episode in her life, she added:  “I hate him!”