“Never you mind, Sophy dear,” said the girl, placing her hand half affectionately, half humorously on the old woman’s shoulder; “mebbe I won’t always be a discredit and a bother to you.  Jest you hold your hosses, and wait until uncle Harry ‘holds up’ the next Pioneer Coach,”—­the dancing devil in her eyes glanced as if accidentally on the young expressman,—­“and he’ll make a big enough pile to send me to Europe, and you’ll be quit o’ me.”

The embarrassment, suspiciousness, and uneasiness of the coach party here found relief in a half hysteric explosion of laughter, in which even the dogged Hiram and Sophy joined.  It seemed as impossible to withstand the girl’s invincible audacity as her beauty.  She was quick to perceive her advantage, and, with a responsive laugh and a picturesque gesture of invitation, said:—­

“Now that’s all settled, ye’d better waltz in and have your whiskey and coffee afore the stage starts.  Ye kin comfort yourselves that it ain’t stolen or pizoned, even if it is served up to ye by Snapshot Harry’s niece!” With another easy gesture she swung the demijohn over her arm, and, offering a tin cup to each of the men, filled them in turn.

The ice thus broken, or perhaps thus perilously skated over, the passengers were as profuse in their thanks and apologies as they had been constrained and artificial before.  Heckshill and Frenshaw vied with each other for a glance from the audacious Flo.  If their compliments partook of an extravagance that was at times ironical, the girl was evidently not deceived by it, but replied in kind.  Only the expressman who seemed to have fallen under the spell of her audacious glances, was uneasy at the license of the others, yet himself dumb towards her.  The lady discreetly drew nearer to the fire, the old woman, and her coffee; Hiram subsided into his apathetic attitude by the fire.

A shout from the road at last proclaimed the return of Yuba Bill and his helpers.  It had the singular effect of startling the party into a vague and uneasy consciousness of indiscretion, as if it had been the voice of the outer world of law and order, and their manner again became constrained.  The leave-taking was hurried and perfunctory; the diplomatic Heckshill again lapsed into glittering generalities about “the best of friends parting.”  Only the expressman lingered for a moment on the doorstep in the light of the fire and the girl’s dancing eyes.

“I hope,” he stammered, with a very youthful blush, “to come the next time—­with—­with—­a better introduction.”

“Uncle Harry’s,” she said, with a quick laugh and a mock curtsey, as she turned away.