protest, to which Lyster smiled but looked doubtfully down at her. To the
man watching them from without, the two seemed always so close--so
confidential. At times he even wondered if Lyster had not learned more
than himself of her life before that day at Akkomi's camp.

All that evening Dan had not once entered the room where they danced, or
added in any way to their merry-making. He had stood outside the door most
of the time, or sometimes rested a little way from it on a store box,
where he smoked placidly, and inspected the people who gathered to the
dance.

All the invited guests came early, and perfect harmony reigned within. A
few of the unsavory order of citizens had sauntered by, as though taking
note of the pleasures from which they were excluded. But it was not
until almost twelve o'clock--just after Overton had turned away from
watching the waltz--that a pistol shot rang out in the street, and several
dancers halted.

Some of the men silently moved to the door, but just then the door was
opened by Overton, who looked in.

"It was only my gun went off by accident," he said, carelessly. "So don't
let me stampede the party. Go on with your music."

The stranger, Harris, was nearest the door, and essayed to pass out, but
Overton touched him on the arm.

"Not just yet," he said hurriedly. "Don't come out or others will follow,
and there'll be trouble. Keep them in some way."

Then the door closed. The concertina sobbed and shrieked out its notes,
and drowned a murmur of voices on the outside. One man lay senseless close
to the doorstep, and four more men with two women stood a little apart
from him.

"If another shot is fired, your houses will be torn down over your heads
to-morrow," said Overton, threateningly; "and some of you will not be
needing an earthly habitation by that time, either."

"Fury! It is Overton!" muttered one of the men to another. "They told us
he wasn't in this thing."

"What for you care?" demanded the angry tones of a Dutch woman. "What
difference that make--eh? If so be as we want to dance--well, then, we go
in and dance--you make no mistake."

But the men were not so aggressive. The most audacious was the senseless
one, who had fired the revolver and whom Overton had promptly and quietly
knocked down.

"I don't think you men want any trouble of this sort," he remarked, and
ignored the women entirely. "If you've been told that I'm not in this,
that's just where some one t