A revolver shot rang out sharply from one of the rooms below, followed by the sound of loud voices, and a noise of struggle.  The startled girl sat upright on the cot, listening, but the disturbance ceased almost immediately, and she finally lay down again, her heart still beating wildly.  Her thoughts, never still, wandered over the events of the evening—­the arrival at Haskell station, the strange meeting with Westcott, and the sudden revelation that he was the partner of Frederick Cavendish.

The big, good-natured miner had interested her from the first as representing a perfect type of her preconceived ideal of the real Westerner.  She had liked the firm character of his face, the quiet, thoughtful way in which he acted, the whole unobtrusive bearing of the man.  Then, as they had walked that long mile together in the darkness, she had learned things about him—­little glimpses of his past, and of dawning hopes—­which only served to increase her confidence.  Already he had awakened her trust; she felt convinced that if she needed friendship, advice, even actual assistance, here was one whom she could implicitly trust.

The racket outside died away slowly.  She heard various guests return to their rooms, staggering along the hall and fumbling at their doors; voices echoed here and there, and one fellow, mistaking his domicile entirely, struggled with her latch in a vain endeavour to gain entrance.  She was upon her feet, when companions arrived and led the invader elsewhere, their loud laughter dying away in the distance.  It was long after this before nature finally conquered and the girl slept outstretched on the hard cot, the first faint grey of dawn already visible in the eastern sky.

She was young, though, and she awoke rested and refreshed, in spite of the fact that her body ached at first from the discomfort of the cot.  The sunlight rested in a sheet of gold on her drawn curtain, and the silence of the morning, following so unexpectedly the dismal racket of the night, seemed to fairly shock her into consciousness.  Could this be Haskell?  Could this indeed be the inferno into which she had been precipitated from the train in the darkness of the evening before?  She stared about at the bare, board walls, the bullet-scarred mirror, the cracked pitcher, before she could fully reassure herself; then stepped upon the disreputable rug, and crossed to the open window.

Haskell at nine in the morning bore but slight resemblance to that same environment during the hours of darkness—­especially on a night immediately following pay-day at the mines.  As Miss Donovan, now thoroughly awake, and obsessed by the memory of those past hours of horror, cautiously drew aside the corner of torn curtain, and gazed down upon the deserted street below, she could scarcely accept the evidence of her own eyes.