"Please, it's very important."

"Who are you?"

"It's Panhandle Smith," replied Pan.

"That cowboy's drunk and I--no--I'm sorry."

"Louise I'm not drunk, but I am in bad temper. I ask as a friend.

Don't cross me here. I can easy shove in this door."

He heard soft steps, a breathless exclamation, then a key turned in the lock, and the door opened. The lamplight was not bright, Louise stood there half dressed, her bare arms and bosom gleaming. Pan entered, dragging Blinky with him, and closed the door all but tight.

"Louise, it wasn't kind of you to do that," said Pan reproachfully.

"Have you any better friends than Blinky or me?"

"G.o.d knows--I haven't," faltered the girl. "But I've been ill--in bed--and am just getting out. I--I--heard about you--today--and Blink being with you--drunk."

Pan stepped to the red-shaded lamp on a small table beside the bed, and turned up the light. The room had more comfort and color than any Pan had seen for many a day.

He bent searching eyes upon Louise. She did look ill--white, with great dark shadows under her eyes, but she seemed really beautiful.

What a tragic face it was, betrayed now by lack of paint! Pan had never seen her like this. If he had needed it, this would have warmed his heart to her.

"What do you want of me?" she asked, with a nervous twisting of hands she tried to hide.

Pan took her hands and pulled her a little toward him.

"Louise, you like me, don't you, as a friend or brother?" he asked gently.

"Yes, when I'm sober," she replied wanly.

"And you like Blinky, here, don't you--like him a lot?"

"I did. I couldn't help it, the d.a.m.n faithful little cowboy," she returned. "But I hate him when he's drunk, and he hates me when I'm drunk."

"Blink, go out and fetch back a bottle--presently. We'll all get drunk."

The cowboy stared like a solemn owl, then very quietly went out.

"Louise, put something over your shoulders. You'll catch cold. Here,"

said Pan and he picked a robe off the bed and wrapped it round her. "I didn't know you were so pretty. No wonder poor Blink worships you."

She drew away from him and sat upon the bed, dark eyes questioning, suspicious. Yet she seemed fascinated. Pan caught a slight quivering of her frame. Where was the audacity, the boldness of this girl? But he did not know her, and he had her word that drink alone enabled her to carry on. He had surprised her. Yet could that account for something different, something quite beyond his power to grasp? Surely this girl could not fear him. Suddenly he remembered that Hardman had fled to this house--was hidden there now. Pan's nerves tautened.

"Louise," he began, taking her hand again, and launching directly into the reason for this interview he had sought, "we've had a great drive.

Blink and I have had luck. Oh, such luck! We sold over fifteen hundred horses.... Well, we're going to Arizona, to a sunny open country, not like this.... Now Blink and I want you to go with us."

"What! Go away with you? How, in G.o.d's name?" she gasped in utter amaze.

"Why, as Blink's wife, of course. And I'll be your big brother,"

replied Pan, not without agitation. It was a pregnant moment. She stared a second, white and still, with great solemn searching eyes on his. Pan felt strangely embarra.s.sed, yet somehow happy that he had dared to approach her with such a proposition.

Suddenly she kissed him, she clung to him, she buried her face on his shoulder and he heard her murmur incoherently something about "honest-to-G.o.d men."

"What do you say, little girl?" he went on. "It's a chance for you to be good again. It'll save that wild cowboy, who never had a decent ambition till he met you. He loves you. He worships you. He hates what you have to suffer here. He--"

"So this is Panhandle Smith?" she interrupted, looking up at him with eyes like dark stars. "No! No! No! I wouldn't degrade even a worthless cowboy."

"You're wrong. He'll _not_ be worthless, if you repay his faith.

Louise, don't turn your back on hope, on love, on a home."

"No!" she flashed, pa.s.sionately.

"Why?" he returned, in sharp appeal.

"Because he's too good for me. Because I don't deserve your friendship. But so help me G.o.d I'll love you both all the rest of my miserable life--which won't be long."

He took her in his arms, as if to add force to argument. "But, you poor child, this is no place for you. You'll only go to h.e.l.l--commit suicide or be killed in a drunken brawl."

"Panhandle, I may end even worse," she replied, in bitter mockery. "I might marry d.i.c.k Hardman. He talks of it--when he's drunk."

Pan released her, and leaned back to see her face. "_Marry_ you! d.i.c.k Hardman talks of that?" he burst out incredulously.

"Yes, he does. And I might let him when I'm drunk. I'd do anything then."

At that moment the door opened noiselessly and Blinky entered carrying a bottle and gla.s.ses.

"Good, Blink, old pard," said Pan, breathing heavily. "Louise and I have just made up our minds to get drunk together. Blink, you stay sober."

"I cain't stay what I ain't," retorted Blinky. "An' I won't stay heah, either, to see her drink. I hate her then."

She poured the dark red liquor out into the gla.s.ses. "Boy, I want you to hate me. I'll make you hate me... Here's to Panhandle Smith!"

While she drank Blinky moved backwards to the door, eyes glinting brightly into Pan's and then he was gone.

In the mood under which Pan labored, liquor had no effect upon him but to act as fire to body and mind. The girl, however, was transformed into another creature. Bright red spots glowed in her cheeks, her eyes danced and dilated, her whole body answered to the stimulus. One drink led to another. She could not resist the insidious appet.i.te thus created. She did not see whether Pan drank or not. She grew funny, then sentimental, and finally lost herself in that stage of unnatural abandon for which, when sober, she frankly confessed she drank.

Pan decided that presently he would wrap a blanket around her, pick her up and pack her out. Blinky would shoot out the lights in the saloon, and the rest would be easy. If she knew that Hardman was in the house, as Pan had suspected, she had now no memory of it.

"You big handsome devil," she called Pan. "I told you--to keep away from me."

"Louise, don't make love to me," replied Pan.

"Why not? Men are all alike."

"No, you're wrong. You forget what you said a little while ago. I've lost my sweetheart, and my heart is broken."

She leered at him, and offered him another drink. Pan took the gla.s.s away from her. It was possible he might overdo his part.