“He’s comin’ now, now; he’s comin’!” the Girl was saying, when suddenly her eyes were attracted to a pair of stockings hanging upon the wall; quickly she released her hold on the woman and with a hop, skip and a jump they were down and hid away in her bureau drawer.

“My roses—­what did you do with them, Wowkle?” she asked a trifle impatiently as she fumbled in the drawer.

“Ugh!” grunted Wowkle, and pointed to a corner of the bureau top.

“Good!” cried the Girl, delightedly, as she spied them.  The next instant she was busily engaged in arranging them in her hair, pausing only to take a pistol out of her pocket, which she laid on the edge of the bureau.  “No offence, Wowkle,” she went on thoughtfully, a moment later, “but I want you to put your best foot forward when you’re waitin’ on table to-night.  This here company o’ mine’s a man o’ idees.  Oh, he knows everythin’!  Sort of a damme style.”

Wowkle gave no sign of having heard her mistress’ words, but kept right on tidying the room.  Now she went over to the cupboard and took down two cups, which she placed on the fireplace base.  It was while she was in the act of laying down the last one that the Girl broke in suddenly upon her thoughts with: 

“Say, Wowkle, did Billy Jackrabbit really propose to you?”

“Yep—­get marry,” spoke up Jackrabbit’s promised wife without looking up.

For some moments the Girl continued to fumble among her possessions in the bureau drawer; at last she brought forth an orange-coloured satin ribbon, which she placed in the Indian woman’s hands with her prettiest smile, saying: 

“Here, Wowkle, you can have that to fix up for the weddin’.”

Wowkle’s eyes glowed with appreciation.

“Huh!” she ejaculated, and proceeded to wind the ribbon about the beads around her neck.

Turning once more to the bureau, the Girl took out a small parcel done up in tissue paper and began to unwrap it.

“I’m goin’ to put on them, if I can git ’em on,” she said, displaying a pair of white satin slippers.  The next instant she had plumped herself down upon the floor and was trying to encase her feet in a pair of slippers which were much too small for them.  “Remember what fun I made o’ you when you took up with Billy Jackrabbit?” suddenly she asked with a happy little smile.  “What for? sez I. Well, p’r’aps you was right.  P’r’aps it’s nice to have someone you really care for—­who belongs to you.  P’r’aps they ain’t so much in the saloon business for a woman after all, and you don’t know what livin’ really is until—­” She stopped abruptly and threw upon the floor the slipper that refused to give to her foot.  “Oh, Wowkle,” she went on, taking up the other slipper, “it’s nice to have someone you can talk to, someone you can turn your heart inside out to.”

At last she had succeeded in getting into one slipper and, rising, tried to stand in it; but it hurt her so frightfully that she immediately sank down upon the floor and proceeded to pat and rub and coddle her foot to ease the pain.  It was while she was thus engaged that a knock came upon her cabin door.