But for the rifle he carried and some modern peculiarities of dress, he was of a grace so unusual and unconventional that he might have passed for a faun who was quitting his ancestral home.  He stepped to the side of the bear with a light elastic movement that was as unlike customary progression as his face and figure were unlike the ordinary types of humanity.  Even as he leaned upon his rifle, looking down at the prostrate animal, he unconsciously fell into an attitude that in any other mortal would have been a pose, but with him was the picturesque and unstudied relaxation of perfect symmetry.

“Hallo, Mister!”

He raised his head so carelessly and listlessly that he did not otherwise change his attitude.  Stepping from behind the tree, the woman of the preceding night stood before him.  Her hands were free except for a thong of the riata, which was still knotted around one wrist, the end of the thong having been torn or burnt away.  Her eyes were bloodshot, and her hair hung over her shoulders in one long black braid.

“I reckoned all along it was you who shot the bear,” she said; “at least some one hiding yer,” and she indicated the hollow tree with her hand.  “It wasn’t no chance shot.”  Observing that the young man, either from misconception or indifference, did not seem to comprehend her, she added, “We came by here, last night, a minute after you fired.”

“Oh, that was you kicked up such a row, was it?” said the young man, with a shade of interest.

“I reckon,” said the woman, nodding her head, “and them that was with me.”

“And who are they?”

“Sheriff Dunn, of Yolo, and his deputy.”

“And where are they now?”

“The deputy—­in h-ll, I reckon; I don’t know about the sheriff.”

“I see,” said the young man quietly; “and you?”

“I—­got away,” she said savagely.  But she was taken with a sudden nervous shiver, which she at once repressed by tightly dragging her shawl over her shoulders and elbows, and folding her arms defiantly.

“And you’re going?”

“To follow the deputy, may be,” she said gloomily.  “But come, I say, ain’t you going to treat?  It’s cursed cold here.”

“Wait a moment.”  The young man was looking at her, with his arched brows slightly knit and a half smile of curiosity.  “Ain’t you Teresa?”

She was prepared for the question, but evidently was not certain whether she would reply defiantly or confidently.  After an exhaustive scrutiny of his face she chose the latter, and said, “You can bet your life on it, Johnny.”

“I don’t bet, and my name isn’t Johnny.  Then you’re the woman who stabbed Dick Curson over at Lagrange’s?”

She became defiant again.

“That’s me, all the time.  What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.  And you used to dance at the Alhambra?” She whisked the shawl from her shoulders, held it up like a scarf, and made one or two steps of the sembicuacua.  There was not the least gayety, recklessness, or spontaneity in the action; it was simply mechanical bravado.  It was so ineffective, even upon her own feelings, that her arms presently dropped to her side, and she coughed embarrassedly.  “Where’s that whiskey, pardner?” she asked.