He was much more concerned the next morning when, after relieving the doctor for his regular morning visits, he was startled an hour later by the abrupt return of that gentleman.  His face was marked by some excitement and anxiety, which nevertheless struggled with that sense of the ludicrous which Californians in those days imported into most situations of perplexity or catastrophe.  Putting his hands deeply into his trousers pockets, he confronted his youthful partner behind the counter.

“How much did you charge that French-woman?” he said gravely.

“Twenty-five cents,” said Kane timidly.

“Well, I’d give it back and add two hundred and fifty dollars if she had never entered the shop.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Her head will be—­and a mass of it, in a day, I reckon!  Why, man, you put enough plaster on it to clothe and paper the dome of the Capitol!  You drew her scalp together so that she couldn’t shut her eyes without climbing up the bed-post!  You mowed her hair off so that she’ll have to wear a wig for the next two years—­and handed it to her in a beau-ti-ful sealed package!  They talk of suing me and killing you out of hand.”

“She was bleeding a great deal and looked faint,” said the junior partner; “I thought I ought to stop that.”

“And you did—­by thunder!  Though it might have been better business for the shop if I’d found her a crumbling ruin here, than lathed and plastered in this fashion, over there!  However,” he added, with a laugh, seeing an angry light in his junior partner’s eye, “She don’t seem to mind it—­the cursing all comes from them.  She rather likes your style and praises it—­that’s what gets me!  Did you talk to her much,” he added, looking critically at his partner.

“I only told her to sit still or she’d bleed to death,” said Kane curtly.

“Humph!—­she jabbered something about your being ‘strong’ and knowing just how to handle her.  Well, it can’t be helped now.  I think I came in time for the worst of it and have drawn their fire.  Don’t do it again.  The next time a woman with a cut head and long hair tackles you, fill up her scalp with lint and tannin, and pack her off to some of the big shops and make them pick it out.”  And with a good-humored nod he started off to finish his interrupted visits.

With a vague sense of remorse, and yet a consciousness of some injustice done him, Mr. Kane resumed his occupation with filters and funnels, and mortars and triturations.  He was so gloomily preoccupied that he did not, as usual, glance out of the window, or he would have observed the mining stranger of the previous night before it.  It was not until the man’s bowed shoulders blocked the light of the doorway that he looked up and recognized him.  Kane was in no mood to welcome his appearance.  His presence, too, actively recalled the last night’s adventure of which he was a witness—­albeit