d and Alexander stepped in,
dropping her pack to the floor and standing speechless for a moment or
two as her amazed eyes took in the composition of the picture.
Alexander had never seen such a spectacle before, and as she looked
about for someone who appeared to have authority here, her fine eyes
and lips fell into an unmasked scorn.

She had not closed the door and through it, close on her heels, slipped
Brent. For, a little space the confusion took no account of her coming
but the city man was standing directly behind her and he saw the
pliancy of her attitude stiffen and then across her shoulder he
recognized in a rear door the tense figure of Bud Sellers.

Sellers stood looking through a lane which chance had left open and
Brent thought that his posture was the electrically expectant one of a
man poised for instant action. He remembered that when Bud went on a
spree he was known as the "mad dog."

That same insanity which had attacked the father might now even forget
that the daughter's assumption of being a man was only a pretense. He
might act as though she were a man bent on avenging a mortal injury.
There was no leisure then to speculate on how Bud had gotten here--that
he was here with his gaze fixed in that galvanized fashion on the girl
was a sufficient cause for apprehension.

Then the eyes of the many began following the eyes of the few, until a
brief lull settled down on the dissonance, and everyone was staring at
the girl who stood inside the door, dressed as a man, but holding their
gaze with the lodestone of her womanly beauty.

A hoarse shout went up from the rear. "A gal in pants! Hit's ther
he-woman!"

"I wants ter see ther tavern-keeper. Whar's he at?" demanded Alexander
in a clear voice that went through the place like the note of a
xylophone. She stood out, a picture of serene beauty drawn against an
infernally evil and confused background.

Two of the wretched women came forward and bent upon her the full
battery of their brazen and leering curiosity.

"Pants!" exclaimed one of them satirically.

"Ther wench hain't got no shame!" The second used an even uglier word.

But Alexander ignored that criticism.

"Whar's ther landlord at?" she repeated and a chorus of laughter ensued.

Then a bewhiskered fellow, red-eyed and dirty, to whom Jase Mallows had
previously spoken, came to the front with a burlesqued attempt at a low
bow.

"Don't heed these hyar fool women, sweetheart,"