* * * * *

The balls which were given at the Franklin House on the old Pioneer road were the most pretentious of the year.  Feminine loveliness in silks and cameos gathered from every section.  General Sutter and his officers sometimes were there, and the Spanish grandees brought to them the lovely, star-eyed beauties of their households.

On this night a brilliant assemblage stood about in the ballroom floor ready for a quadrille.  Elena Ashley and her betrothed were near the wide entrance doors.

“There is “Sheriff Paul of Calaveras County,” she told him.  “He does not dance.  I wonder what brings him here?”

The doors opened and Rosa Phillips entered, magnificently jewelled and dressed in a rich silk of pearl grey.  Elena stared, clutching at her partner’s arm.

“Oh, look!” she shrieked , “she is wearing my wedding dress.  My wedding dress which was stitched at the shop of Rosenthal the peddler, in Sacramento, and which he was to bring me two weeks ago.  I know it is mine!  There is the pearl passe-mentre on it that was my mother’s.  There is none other like it in California!”

“So?” answered Rosa cooly, glancing down at the voluminous silken folds of her robe.  Then she stood waving her big fan, her large, dark eyes roving across the throng.

“Mine Host” came quickly forward.  “It is not permitted, senora, that you - "

Rosa smiled cynically.  “I, the silken hawk, came not to flutter your nest of doves, senor.  I came but for a little hour to meet a man who — Ah, he is coming now.  Sheriff Paul, I have that to tell you which — "

The sheriff offered his arm ceremoniously and they passed out of the ballroom.  Tender hearted Elena was conscience stricken.  She dropped her lover’s arm and darted after them through the big doors.

“Oh, I am sorry, I did not mean — please, Sheriff Paul, she may have the dress, poor thing!  But for her, I should have had no man to marry on my wedding day next week.”

Sheriff Paul turned quickly.  Elena, frightened, clapped two little hands over her mouth.  Rosa shrugged indifferently, and tipping back her small, black head, listened to the music in the ballroom.

“Madam,” to Rosa, “you sent for me, making strange promises which, for the safety of this community, I hope that you are now pleased to keep.”

Without lowering her chin she looked at him through sinister, narrowed eyelids, and a smile of triumphant malice touched her face.

“Senor, I make no promises which I fail to keep,” she answered, “and there is also a promise which I made Senor Tom Bell — "

* * * * *

“There is some one knocking at the cellar door,” said Tom Bell to Phillips.  “See who is there, and be careful that you let no one in without the bullet and the password.”

“Tom, I’m afraid,” whined Driscoll “that Spanish devil’s promised to get you hung more than once lately, and last night I know she sent that Mexican Jose of hers out somewhere with a string and bullet.  I saw them - "