not there, nor had the lad in charge seen her.

Meanwhile, Pretty Pierre had made his way to the Saints' Repose, and
was sitting among the miners indolently smoking. In vain he was asked
to play cards. His one reply was, "No, pardon, no! I play one game only
to-night, the biggest game ever played in Pipi Valley." In vain, also,
was he asked to drink. He refused the hospitality, defying the danger
that such lack of good-fellowship might bring forth. He hummed in
patches to himself the words of a song that the 'brules' were wont to
sing when they hunted the buffalo:

"'Voila!' it is the sport to ride--
Ah, ah the brave hunter!

To thrust the arrow in his hide,
To send the bullet through his side
'Ici,' the buffalo, 'joli!'
Ah, ah the buffalo!"

He nodded here and there as men entered; but he did not stir from his
seat. He smoked incessantly, and his eyes faced the door of the bar-room
that entered upon the street. There was no doubt in the minds of any
present that the promised excitement would occur. Shon McGann was as
fearless as he was gay. And Pipi Valley remembered the day in which
he had twice risked his life to save two women from a burning
building--Lady Jane and another. And Lady Jane this evening was
agitated, and once or twice furtively looked at something under the
bar-counter; in fact, a close observer would have noticed anger or
anxiety in the eyes of the daughter of Dick Waldron, the keeper of the
Saints' Repose. Pierre would certainly have seen it had he been looking
that way. An unusual influence was working upon the frequenters of the
busy tavern. Planned, premeditated excitement was out of their line.
Unexpectedness was the salt of their existence. This thing had an air
of system not in accord with the suddenness of the Pipi mind. The
half-breed was the only one entirely at his ease; he was languid and
nonchalant; the long lashes of his half-shut eyelids gave his face a
pensive look. At last King Kinkley walked over to him and said: "There's
an almighty mysteriousness about this event which isn't joyful, Pretty
Pierre. We want to see the muss cleared up, of course; we want Shon
McGann to act like a high-toned citizen, and there's a general prejudice
in favour of things bein' on the flat of your palm, as it were. Now
this thing hangs fire, and there's a lack of animation about it, isn't
there?"

To this, Pretty Pierre replied: