ders.

"He wearies me. Life--this place--wearies me."

"Yes, and I weary you, too--now. Plain as day, it is."

The Phillips woman smiled (she seldom laughed) and there was only
cruelty in her smile--no kindliness, no womanly softness of any sort.

"My friend, soon there will be no 'you.' The night is coming and there
will be no sunrise."

A man dismounted at the gate and led his horse past the window to the
stables in the cellar. He walked with a curious, halting pace.

"There's Jim Driscoll back already. Must bring news," said Bell, leaving
her hurriedly, and so neglecting to ask the meaning of her cryptic
remark.

Rosa slipped in behind the bar, late that evening, beautifully gowned,
and with her dark hair dressed high. Her vivid face glowed like a
scarlet poppy and was bright with smiles. Three or four men in the
crowded bar-room rose to their feet and drank to her bright eyes and
strolled across to the bar.

"Soon now," she whispered, "I shall sweep out the lights. Those two
who have just entered--who are they?" She went across the room to the
newcomers. "The senors may pay me for the drinks, if they desire," she
said to them, meaningly.

"La Rosita shall take what pleases her," one of them laughed. Among
the handful of coins and small nuggets he brought from his pocket was a
bullet strung on a bit of dirty twine.

"Ah! a love token, senor?"

"Yes, from the throat of Betsy Jane" (a term often used for a rifle).

"In twenty minutes, my friends, there will be opened a chute into
purgatory for all who are in this bar room. Your 'love token' names you
Senor Bell's men. Before then you will seek the rear of the room--eh?"

She drifted away from them to pause at a small table where sat a young
man alone.

"And you, pretty fellow, you are new in California?"

"Yes, I landed in San Francisco only ten days ago." He was new indeed,
or he would have realized the danger of telling his business to the
first person who asked.

"You go far, senor?"

"Not now. I have come far, but my journey is near to a very happy
ending."

"So?"

"Yes. I have come to marry Miss Elena Ashley, at Auburn, to whom I have
been long betrothed."

She tapped her white teeth with her fan.

"And yet you linger at Mountaineer House?"

"Horses are expensive, and I am not rich. I walked. I was tired. I saw
you in your garden, and you are very beautiful."

Rosa's capricious vanity was touched. The whim seized her to save this
ex