The fellow held the girl for an instant and helped her to regain her equilibrium, exclaiming, with a laugh:  “Say!  What’s the matter with you, sister?  Can’t you see where you’re going?” When Rouletta made no response the man continued in an even friendlier tone, “Well, I can see; my eyesight’s good, and it tells me you’re about the best-looking dame I’ve run into to-night.”  Still laughing, he bent his head as if to catch the girl’s answer.  “Eh?  I don’t get you.  Who d’you say you’re looking for?”

’Poleon was frankly puzzled.  He resented this man’s tone of easy familiarity and, about to interfere, he was restrained by Rouletta’s apparent indifference.  What ailed the girl?  It was too dark to make out her face, but her voice, oddly changed and unnatural, gave him cause for wonderment.  Could it be—­’Poleon’s half-formed question was answered by the stranger who cried, in mock reproach:  “Naughty!  Naughty!  You’ve had a little too much, that’s what’s the matter with you.  Why, you need a guardeen.”  Taking Rouletta by the shoulders, the speaker turned her about so that the dim half-light that filtered through the canvas wall of the tent saloon shone full upon her face.

’Poleon saw now that the girl was indeed not herself; there was a childish, vacuous expression upon her face; she appeared to be dazed and to comprehend little of what the man was saying.  This was proved by her blank acceptance of his next insinuating words:  “Say, it’s lucky I stumbled on to you.  I been up all night and so have you.  S’pose we get better acquainted.  What?”

Rouletta offered no objection to this proposal; the fellow slipped an arm about her and led her away, meanwhile pouring a confidential murmur into her ear.  They had proceeded but a few steps when ’Poleon Doret strode out of the gloom and laid a heavy hand upon the man.

“My frien’,” he demanded, brusquely, “w’ere you takin’ dis lady?”

“Eh?” The fellow wheeled sharply.  “What’s the idea?  What is she to you?”

“She ain’t not’in’ to me.  But I seen you plenty tams an’—­you ain’t no good.”

Rouletta spoke intelligibly for the first time:  “I’ve no place to go—­no place to sleep.  I’m very—­tired.”

“There you’ve got it,” the girl’s self-appointed protector grinned.  “Well, I happen to have room for her in my tent.”  As Doret’s fingers sank deeper into his flesh the man’s anger rose; he undertook to shake off the unwelcome grasp.  “You leggo!  You mind your own business—­”

“Dis goin’ be my biznesse,” ’Poleon announced.  “Dere’s somet’ing fonny ’bout dis—­”

“Don’t get funny with me.  I got as much right to her as you have—­ " ’Poleon jerked the man off his feet, then flung him aside as if he were unclean.  His voice was hoarse with disgust when he cried: 

“Get out!  Beat it!  By Gar!  You ain’t fit for touch decent gal.  You spik wit’ her again, I tear you in two piece!”