“Time for what?” said Van Loo savagely.

“Time to apologize for having cut my horse with your whip,” said Jack sweetly.  “We don’t want to quarrel before a woman.”

“I’ve no time for fooling!” said Van Loo, endeavoring to pass.

But Jack’s hand had slipped to Van Loo’s wrist, although he still smiled cheerfully.  “Ah!  Then you did mean it, and you propose to give me satisfaction?”

Van Loo paled slightly; he knew Jack’s reputation as a duelist.  But he was desperate.  “You see my position,” he said hurriedly.  “I’m in a hurry; I have a lady with me.  No man of honor”—­

“You do me wrong,” interrupted Jack, with a pained expression,—­“you do, indeed.  You are in a hurry—­well, I have plenty of time.  If you cannot attend to me now, why I will be glad to accompany you and the lady to the next station.  Of course,” he added, with a smile, “at a proper distance, and without interfering with the lady, whom I am pleased to recognize as the wife of an old friend.  It would be more sociable, perhaps, if we had some general conversation on the road; it would prevent her being alarmed.  I might even be of some use to you.  If we are overtaken by her husband on the road, for instance, I should certainly claim the right to have the first shot at you.  Boy!” he called to the hostler, “just sponge out Pancho’s mouth, will you, to be ready when the buggy goes?” And, loosening his grip of Van Loo’s wrist, he turned away as the other quickly entered the hotel.

But Mr. Van Loo did not immediately seek Mrs. Barker.  He had already some experience of that lady’s nerves and irascibility on the drive, and had begun to see his error in taking so dangerous an impediment to his flight from the country.  And another idea had come to him.  He had already effected his purpose of compromising her with him in that flight, but it was still known only to few.  If he left her behind for the foolish, doting husband, would not that devoted man take her back to avoid a scandal, and even forbear to pursue him for his financial irregularities?  What were twenty thousand dollars of Mrs. Barker’s money to the scandal of Mrs. Barker’s elopement?  Again, the failure to realize the forgery had left him safe, and Barker was sufficiently potent with the bank and Demorest to hush up that also.  Hamlin was now the only obstacle to his flight; but even he would scarcely pursue him if Mrs. Barker were left behind.  And it would be easier to elude him if he did.

In his preoccupation Van Loo did not see that he had entered the bar-room, but, finding himself there, he moved towards the bar; a glass of spirits would revive him.  As he drank it he saw that the room was full of rough men, apparently miners or packers—­some of them Mexican, with here and there a Kanaka or Australian.  Two men more ostentatiously clad, though apparently on equal terms with the others, were standing in the corner with their backs towards him.  From the