a
wonder some fellow wouldn't open a cantaloupe or something."

Haney put his finger to his mouth and whistled to the grocer opposite.
He came on the run, alert for trade.

"Roll up a couple of big melons," called Haney, largely. "We're all
drying to cinders over here."

The loafers cheered, but the girl said, in a lower voice, "I was only
joking."

"What you say goes," he replied, with significance.

She did not stay to see the melons cut, but went back to her desk, and
he brought a choice slice in to her.

She took it, but she said, "You mustn't think you own me--not yet." Her
tone was resentful. "I don't want you to say things like that--before
people."

"Like what?" he asked.

She did not answer.

He went on: "I don't mean to assume anything, God knows. I'm only
waitin' and hopin'. I'll go away if you want me to and let you think it
over alone."

"I wish you would," she said, realizing that this committed her to at
least a consideration of his proposal.

He held out his hand. "Good-bye--till next Saturday."

She put her small, brown hand in his. He crushed it hard and his bold
face softened. "I need you, my girl. Sure I do!" And in his eyes was
something very winning.

CHAPTER II

MARSHALL HANEY CHANGES HEART

It was well for Haney that Bertie did not see him as he sat above his
gambling boards, watchful, keen-eyed, grim of visage, for she would have
trembled in fear of him. "Haney's" was both saloon and gambling hall. In
the front, on the right, ran the long bar with its shining brass and
polished mahogany (he prided himself on having the best bar west of
Denver), and in the rear, occupying both sides of the room, stood two
long rows of faro and roulette outfits, together with card-tables and
dice-boards. It was the largest and most prosperous gambling hall in the
camps, and always of an evening was crowded with gamesters and those who
came as lookers-on.

On the right side, in a raised seat about midway of the hall, Haney
usually sat, a handsome figure, in broad white hat, immaculate linen,
and well-cut frock-coat, his face as pale as that of a priest in the
glare of the big electric light. On the other side, and directly
opposite, Williams kept corresponding "lookout" over the dealers and the
crowd. He was a bold man who attempted any shenanigan with Mart Haney,
and the games of his halls were reported honest.

To think of a young and innocent girl married to this remorseless
gamb