ler, scarred with the gun and the knife, was a profanation of
maidenhood--and yet, as he fell now and then into a dream, he took on a
kind of savage beauty which might allure and destroy a woman. Whatever
else he was, he was neither commonplace nor mean. The visitors to whom
he was pointed out as "a type of our modern Western desperado"
invariably acknowledged that he looked the part. His smile was of
singular sweetness--all the more alluring because of its rarity--and the
warm clasp of his big, soft hand had made him sheriff in San Juan
County, and his bravery and his love of fair play were well known and
admired among the miners.

The sombre look in his face, which resembled that of a dreaming leopard,
was due to the new and secret plans with which his mind was now engaged.
"If she takes me, I quit this business," he had promised himself. "She
despises me in it, and so does the mother, and so I reckon 'tis up to me
to clean house."

Then he thought of his own mother, who had the same prejudice, and who
would not have taken a cent of his earnings. "I see no harm in the
business," he said. "Men will drink and they will gamble, and I might as
well serve their wish as any other--better, indeed, for no man can
accuse me of dark ways nor complain of the order of me house. I am a
business man the same as him that runs a grocery store; but 'tis no
matter, she dislikes it, and that ends it. She's a clear-headed wan," he
thought, with a glow of admiration for her. "She's the captain."

He no longer thought of her as his victim--as something to be ruthlessly
enjoyed--he trembled before her, big and brave and relentless as he was
in the world of men. "What has come over me?" he asked himself. "Sure
she has me on me knees--the witch. Me mind is filled with her."

All through the week his agents were at work attempting to sell his
saloons. "I'm ready to close out at a moment's notice," he declared.

At times, as he sat in his place, he lost consciousness of the crowding,
rough-hatted, intent men and the monotonous calls of the dealers. The
click of balls, the buzz of low-toned comment died out of his ears--he
was back in Troy, looking for his father, whom he had not seen or
written to in twenty years. He saw himself, with a dainty little woman
on his arm, taking the boat to New York. "I will go to the biggest hotel
in the city; the girl shall have the best the old town has. Nothing will
be too good for her--"

He roused himse