"That I shall not tell you," replied the woman, firmly.

Ashby made an impatient movement towards her with the question:

"Where was he?"

"Oh, come, Ashby!" put in Rance, speaking for the first time. "She's putting up a game on us."

In a flash Nina wheeled around and with eyes that blazed advanced to the table where the Sheriff was sitting. Indeed, there was something so tigerish about the woman that the Sheriff, in alarm, quickly pushed back his chair.

"I am not lying, Jack Rance." There was an evil glitter in her eye as she watched a sarcastic smile playing around his lips. "Oh, yes, I know you--you are the Sheriff," and so saying a peal of contemptuous merriment burst from her, "and Ramerrez was in the camp not less than two hours ago."

Ashby could hardly restrain his excitement.

"And you saw him?" came from him.

"Yes," was her answer.

Both men sprang to their feet; it was impossible to doubt any longer that she spoke the truth.

"What's his game?" demanded Rance.

The woman answered his question with a question.

"How about the reward, Senor Ashby?"

"You needn't worry about that--I'll see that you get what's coming to you," replied the Wells Fargo Agent already getting into his coat.

"But how are we to know?" inquired Rance, likewise getting ready to leave. "Is he an American or a Mexican?"

"To-night he's an American, that is, he's dressed and looks like one.

But the reward--you swear you're playing fair?"

"On my honour," Ashby a.s.sured her.

The woman's face stood clear--cruelly clear in the light of the kerosene lamp above her head. About her mouth and eyes there was a repellent expression. Her mind, still working vividly, was reviewing the past; and a bitter memory prompted the words which were said however with a smile that was still seductive:

"Try to recall, Senor Ashby, what strangers were in The Polka to-night?"

At these ominous words the men started and regarded each other questioningly. Their keen and trained intelligences were greatly distressed at being so utterly in the dark. For an instant, it is true, the thought of the greaser that Ashby had brought in rose uppermost in their minds, but only to be dismissed quickly when they recalled the woman's words concerning the way that the road agent was dressed. A moment more, however, and a strange thought had fastened itself on one of their active minds--a thought which, although persisting in forcing itself upon the Sheriff's consideration, was in the end rejected as wholly improbable. But who was it then? In his intensity Rance let his cigar go out.

"Ah!" at last he cried. "Johnson, by the eternal!"

"Johnson?" echoed Ashby, wholly at sea and surprised at the look of corroboration in Nina's eyes.

"Yes, Johnson," went on Rance, insistently. Why had he not seen at once that it was Johnson who was the road agent! There could be no mistake!

"You weren't there," he explained hurriedly, "when he came in and began flirting with the Girl and--"

"Ramerrez making love to the Girl?" broke in Ashby. "Ye G.o.ds!"

"The Girl? So that's the woman he's after now!" Nina laughed bitterly.

"Well, she's not destined to have him for long, I can tell you!" And with that she reached out for the bottle on the table and poured herself a small gla.s.s of whisky and swallowed it. When she turned her lips were tightly shut over her brilliant teeth, a thousand thoughts came rushing into her brain. There was no longer any compunction--she would strike now and deep. Through her efforts alone the man would be captured, and she gloried in the thought.

"Here--here is something that will interest you!" she said; and putting her hand in her bosom drew out a soiled, faded photograph. "There--that will settle him for good and all! Never again will he boast of trifling with Nina Micheltorena--with me, a Micheltorena in whose veins runs the best and proudest blood of California!"

Ashby fairly s.n.a.t.c.hed the photograph out of her hand and, after one look at it, pa.s.sed it over to the Sheriff.

"Good of him, isn't it?" sneered Nina; and then seemingly trying by her very vehemence to impress upon herself the impossibility of his ever being anything but an episode in her life, she added: "I hate him!"

The picture was indeed an excellent one. It represented Ramerrez in the gorgeous dress of a _caballero_--and the outlaw was a fine specimen of that spectacular cla.s.s of men. But Rance studied the photograph only long enough to be sure that no mistake was possible. With a quick movement he put it away in his pocket and looked long and hard at the figure of the degraded woman standing before him and revelling in her treachery. In that time he forgot that anyone had ever entertained a kind thought about her; he forgot that she once was respected as well as admired; he was conscious only of regarding her with a far deeper disgust and repugnance than he held towards others much her inferior in birth and education. But, presently, his face grew a shade whiter, if that were possible, and he cursed himself for not having thought of the danger to which the Girl might even now be exposed. In less than a minute, therefore, both men stood ready for the work before them. But on the threshold just before going out into the fierce storm that had burst during the last few minutes, he paused and called back:

"You Mexican devil! If any harm comes to the Girl, I'll strangle you with my own hands!" And not waiting to hear the woman's mocking laughter he pa.s.sed out, followed by Ashby, into the storm.

X.

In the still black night and with no guide other than the dimly-lighted lantern which she carried, the Girl had started for home--a bit of shelter in the middle of a great silence, a little fortress in the wilderness, as it were, with its barred doors and windows--on the top of Cloudy Mountain. To be sure, it was not the first time that she had followed the trail alone: Day and night, night and day, for as long, almost, as she could remember, she had been doing it; indeed, she had watched the alders, oaks and dwarf pines, that bordered the trail, grow year by year as she herself had grown, until now the whispering of the mountain's night winds spoke a language as familiar as her own; but never before had she climbed up into the clean, wide, free sweep of this unbounded horizon, the very air untainted and limitless as the sky itself, with so keen and uncloying a pleasure. But there was a new significance attached to her home-coming to-night: was she not to entertain there her first real visitor?

At the threshold of her cabin the Girl, her cheeks aglow and eyes as bright, almost, as the red cape that enveloped her lithe, girlish figure, paused, and swinging her lantern high above her head so that its light was reflected in the room, she endeavoured to imagine what would be the impression that a stranger would receive coming suddenly upon these surroundings.

And well might she have paused, for no eye ever rested upon a more conglomerate ensemble! Yet, withal, there was a certain attractiveness about this log-built, low, square room, half-papered with gaudy paper--the supply, evidently, having fallen short,--that was as unexpected as it was unusual.

Upon the floor, which had a covering of corn sacks, were many beautiful bear and wolf skins, Indian rugs and Navajo blankets; while overhead--screening some old trunks and boxes neatly piled up high in the loft, which was reached by a ladder, generally swung out of the way--hung a faded, woollen blanket; from the opposite corner there fell an old, patchwork, silk quilt. Dainty white curtains in all their crispness were at the windows, and upon the walls were many rare and weird trophies of the chase, not to mention the innumerable pictures that had been taken from "G.o.dey's Lady Book" and other periodicals of that time. A little book-shelf, that had been fashioned out of a box, was filled with old and well-read books; while the mantel that guarded the fireplace was ornamented with various small articles, conspicuous among which were a clock that beat loud, automatic time with a bra.s.sy resonance, a china dog and cat of most gaudy colours, a whisky bottle and two tumblers, and some winter berries in a jar.

There were two pieces of furniture in the room, however, which were placed with an eye to attract attention, and these the Girl prized most highly: one was a homemade rocking-chair that had been made out of a barrel and had been dyed, unsuccessfully, with indigo blue, and had across its back a knitted tidy with a large, upstanding, satin bow; the other was a homemade, pine wardrobe that had been rudely decorated by one of the boys of the camp and in which the Girl kept her dresses, and was piled up high towards the ceiling with souvenirs of her trip to Monterey, including the hat-boxes and wicker basket that had come well nigh to loading down the stage on that memorable journey.

But it was upon her bed and bedroom fixings that the greatest attempt at decoration had been made; part.i.tioning off the room, as it were, and at the same time forming a canopy about the bed, were curtains of cheap, gaudy material, through the partings of which there was to be had a glimpse of a daintily-made-up bed, whose pillows were made conspicuous by the hand-made lace that trimmed their slips, as was the bureau-cover, and upon which, in charming disarray, were various articles generally included in a woman's toilet, not to mention the numberless strings of coloured beads and other bits of feminine adornment. A table standing in the centre of the room was covered with a small, white cloth, while falling in folds from beneath this was a faded, red cotton cover. The table was laid for one, the charlotte "rusks" and "lemming"

turn-over--each on a separate plate--which Nick had been commissioned to procure, earlier in the evening, from the Palmetto restaurant, looming up prominently in the centre; and on another plate were some chipped beef and biscuits. A large lamp was suspended from the ceiling in the centre of the room and was quaintly, if not grotesquely, shaded; while other lamps flanked by composition metal reflectors concentrated light upon the Girl's bureau, the book-shelf and mantel, leaving the remainder of the room in variant shadow.

All in all, what with the fire that was burning cheerily in the grate and the strong odour of steaming coffee, the room had a soft glow and home-like air that was most inviting.

In that brief moment that the Girl stood in the doorway reviewing her possessions, a mult.i.tude of expressions drifted across her countenance, a mult.i.tude of possibilities thrilled within her bosom. But however much she would have liked to a.n.a.lyse these strange feelings, she resisted the inclination and gave all her attention to the amusing scene that was being enacted before her eyes.

For some time Billy Jackrabbit had been standing by the table looking greedily down upon the charlotte russes there. He was on the point of putting his finger through the centre of one of them when Wowkle--the Indian woman-of-all-work of the cabin, who sat upon the floor before the fire singing a lullaby to the papoose strapped to its cradle on her back--turning suddenly her gaze in his direction, was just in time to prevent him.

"Charlotte rusk--Palmetto rest'rant--not take," were her warning words.

Jackrabbit drew himself up quickly, but he was furious at interference from a source where it was wholly unexpected.

"Hm--me honest," he growled fiercely, flashing her a malignant look.

"Huh?" was Wowkle's monosyllabic observation delivered in a guttural tone.

All of a sudden, Jackrabbit's gaze was arrested by a piece of paper which lay upon the floor and in which had been wrapped the charlotte russes; he went over to it quickly, picked it up, opened it and proceeded to collect on his finger the cream that had adhered to it.

"Huh!" he growled delightedly, holding up his finger for Wowkle's inspection. The next instant, however, he slumped down beside her upon the floor, where both the man and the woman sat in silence gazing into the fire. The man was the first to speak.