“So,” continued Hanson, who was loquacious by nature, but sufficiently shrewd and experienced only to let himself be so when he thought it worth his while, “I begin to figure on my chances.  I learn that Sweeney’s trying to coax her back by letter, so I says to myself:  ‘Rudolf, you just chassez down to Paloma and see what you can do,’ but honest, son,” he put his suit case down in the road and pushed his hat back on his head and put his hands on his hips, “honest to God, I didn’t expect anything like this, the first night I got here, too.”

His companion shifted his quid of tobacco to the other side of his mouth and nodded understandingly.

Hanson’s eyes were fixed ruminatively but unseeingly upon the golden desert, its sand dunes touched with a deep rose soon to be eclipsed by the jealous tyrian purples which were beginning to mass themselves gorgeously beneath the oranges and flame of the setting sun.

“Gee whiz!” he muttered, “and I was figuring that if I hung round here a week or so and played my hand all right, I’d maybe get her to do a few steps for me in the parlor.  Oh, Lordy!  And now I got a chance to see her before the footlights and size up her capacity for getting over them.”

The station agent looked puzzled and a little offended.  “There won’t be any footlights,” he said; “and you’re mistaken if you think she’s up to any rough work like climbing over them, any way.”

Hanson laughed loudly.  “That’s all right, son, you ain’t on to the shop talk, that’s all.  But now, where is this show and what time does it begin?”

“Oh, in an hour or so, whenever Pearl’s minded, and it’s to be held at Chickasaw Pete’s place—­saloon.  You see,” apologetically, “we ain’t a very big community, and that’s the only place where there’s a decent floor for her to dance on.”

Hanson raised his brows and laughed.  “Well”—­he pulled out his watch and looked at it—­“I’ve got time to wash the upper crust of sand off anyway, and get a bite or so first.  I suppose I’ll see you later.  Up this way, you say?”

The agent nodded assent.  “It’s a good betting proposition,” he mused.  “He knows what he wants and he usually gets it, I’m thinking, or there’s something to pay.  But what’ll the Pearl do?  I guess she’s the biggest gamble any man could tackle.”

As his new acquaintance had predicted, Hanson had no difficulty in finding the San Gorgonio, a small hostelry not by any means so gorgeous as its name implied, being merely an unpretentious frame building with a few palms in the enclosure before it, and there he speedily got a room and some supper.  It might be deemed significant that he gave more time and attention to his toilet than his food, but that may have been because he believed in the value of a pleasing appearance as well as in a winning address when transacting business with a woman.  In any event, his motives, whatever they might be, were quite justifiable, as he undoubtedly possessed a bold and striking type of good looks which had never failed of receiving a due appreciation from most women.