ls flashing over them, represented
so much in the way of substantial wealth that it seemed to steady the
whole fantastic scene.

Barbara and I entered on the level of the slightly raised orchestra
stand and only half a dozen paces from it. Nobody noticed us much; we
came in right on the turn of things--floor managers darting around,
orchestra with bows poised and horns at lips, the whole glittering
company of maskers being made ready to weave their "Figure of Eight"
across the dancing floor. My poor girl dragged on my arm; her small feet
scuffed; I lifted her along, wishing I might pick her up and carry her
as Bill had done. I made for an unoccupied musicians' bench; but once
there, she only leaned against it, not letting go her hold on me, and
stood to take in every detail of the confused, moving scene.

The double doors had swung closed behind us; the hallman there who held
the knob, now reinforced by a uniformed policeman. The servants' way, at
the further end was shut; men in plain clothes set their backs against
it. And last, Big Bill himself in overalls, a touch of blunt blue
realism, came fogging along the side-wall to swing into place the great
wooden bar that secured the entire group of glass doors which gave on
the porch. Barbara would have seen all these arrangements while I was
getting ready for my first glance, but I prompted her nervously with a
low-toned, "All set, girl," and then as she still didn't speak, "Bill's
got every door guarded."

She nodded. The length of the room away, in the end gallery, was the
cannery girl queen and her guard. Even at that distance, I recognized
Eddie Hughes, in his pink-and-white Beef Eater togs, a gilded wooden
spear in his hand, a flower tassel bobbing beside that long, drab,
knobby countenance of his. There he was, the man I'd jailed for Thomas
Gilbert's murder. Below on the dancing floor, were the two, Cummings and
Bowman, who had put Worth behind the bars for the same crime. At my side
was the pale, silent girl who declared that Clayte was the murderer.

Whispered tuning and trying of instruments up here; flutter and rush
about down on the dancing floor; and Barbara, that clenched left hand of
hers still pressed in hard against her side, facing what problem?

Crash! Boom! We were so close the music fairly deafened us, as, with a
multiplied undernote of moving feet, the march began. On came those
people toward us, wave behind wave of color and magnificence, dotted