“Was it?”

“Well, wasn’t it?”

The Girl thought it was and she laughed.

“Say, take a chair and set down for a while, won’t you?” was her next remark, she herself taking a chair at the table.

“Thanks,” he said, coming slowly towards her while his eyes wandered about the room for a chair.

“Say, look ’ere!” she shot out, scrutinising him closely; “I ben thinkin’ you didn’t come to the saloon to see me to-night.  What brought you?”

“It was Fate,” he told her, leaning over the table and looking down upon her admiringly.

She pondered his answer for a moment, then blurted out: 

“You’re a bluff!  It may have been Fate, but I tho’t you looked kind o’ funny when Rance asked you if you hadn’t missed the trail an’ wa’n’t on the road to see Nina Micheltorena—­she that lives in the greaser settlement an’ has the name o’ shelterin’ thieves.”

At the mention of thieves, Johnson paled frightfully and the knife which he had been toying with dropped to the floor.

“Was it Fate or the back trail?” again queried the Girl.

“It was Fate,” calmly reiterated the man, and looked her fairly in the eye.

The cloud disappeared from the Girl’s face.

“Serve the coffee, Wowkle!” she called almost instantly.  And then it was that she saw that no chair had been placed at the table for him.  She sprang to her feet, exclaiming:  “Oh, Lordy, you ain’t got no chair yet to—­”

“Careful, please, careful,” quickly warned Johnson, as she rounded the corner of the table upon which his guns lay.

But fear was not one of the Girl’s emotions.  At the display of guns that met her gaze she merely shrugged and inquired placidly: 

“Oh, how many guns do you carry?”

Not unnaturally she waited for his answer before starting in quest of a chair for him; but instead Johnson quietly went over to the chair near the door where his coat lay, hung it up on the peg with his hat, and returning now with a chair, he answered: 

“Oh, several when travelling through the country.”

“Well, set down,” said the Girl bluntly, and hurried to his side to adjust his chair.  But she did not return to her place at the table; instead, she took the barrel rocker near the fireplace and began to rock nervously to and fro.  In silence Johnson sat studying her, looking her through and through, as it were.

“It must be strange living all alone way up here in the mountains,” he remarked, breaking the spell of silence.  “Isn’t it lonely?”

“Lonely?  Mountains lonely?” The Girl’s laugh rang out clearly.  “Besides,” she went on, her eyes fairly dancing with excitement, “I got a little pinto an’ I’m all over the country on ’im.  Finest little horse you ever saw!  If I want to I can ride right down into the summer at the foothills with miles o’ Injun pinks jest a-laffin’ an’ tiger lilies as mad as blazes.  There’s a river there,