“Hey, Antelope Bill, saddle that ewe-necked cayuse of yours and vamoose, pronto, after the doctor.  Plug Hat Pete, you’ve got the best cabin in town.  We’ll want it for the lady.”

“Help yourself, Grizzley,” answered the gambler.  “It is a privilege.”

“I am to stay with Mrs. — Pete?” asked Becky, anxiously.

“Child, you’re a-going to be as safe as if there was a lady in this law-evadin’ camp; which there isn’t, exceptin’ your own sweet and lovely self.”

“Oh!”

“You’re a-going to have old Bull-doze watchin’ inside the cabin and ten decent and sober men watchin’ outside it and nothin’ short of a messenger from up-skies could touch one pretty, red-gold curl on your proud little head.”

“Bob, I’ll take her home to her mother,” spoke up Harry who had never once taken his bold gaze from the girl.

“No, you won’t take her home to her mother, neither!”

Beckey was strangely comforted by the protective drawl of the big man’s voice.  Accustomed as she had grown to the rapid transitions of the West, she realized the fallacy of her first impression from his appearance.  That night laid the foundation of her regard for him, which was deeper than a mere surface appeal, and which was never to waver.

* * * * *

“H’m,” snorted Cornish Jack, shuffling a greasy pack of cards in Sick Jimmie’s place and watching two men go by, “that’s the most willin’ pair on the gulch!  Bob, he’s willin’ to do all the work, an’ Handsome Harry, he’s willin’ to let ’im.  Fine house Bob’s just built.  Must of cost a heap.”

“They say that Miss Beckey and her mother are going to live in it,” answered Plug Hat Pete.  “I’ll raise you ten.”

“Handsome Harry’s bin a-dancin’ round that gal ever since they moved here, six months ago.”

“Yes, and the look in her eyes in another direction, is plainly to be read.”  The implication was lost on Cornish Jack.

“Ol’ Bob, he does all he can to throw ’em together.  Air ye goin’ to the house warmin’ tonight?”

“Certainly,” said The Senator.  “Particularly if we manage to keep old Tommy Norton and Black Joe from getting intoxicated, so there will be a pair of fiddlers on the gulch.  Tommy, on such occasions, always has an attack of religion which precludes the possibility of his assisting at any profane scene of mirth, and Joe falls into a deep sleep from which nothing can rouse him for twenty-four hours.”

“There’s Antelope back.  I hear his roan.”

“Well, who do you think I met down around the curve of Blackjack Hill?  That gal o’ Bob’s on her pinto and that sneakin’ Handsome Harry on his black mustang, ridin’ full-bent-for-leather!”

The men rushed with one accord to Bob’s cabin, where he sat before his fireless hearth.

“We al’ays knew he was a sneakin’ thief, but you wouldn’t hear nothin’ agin him.  Took all the bags of gold dust from your claim, too, didn’t he?”