his claims. Everything was as it
should be. The men in the gulch were not yet awake. From the _Jim Crow_
a drowsy porcupine trundled away bristling.

This could not go on. It would be weeks before he could hope even to
open his negotiations. Peter cooked himself an elaborate breakfast--and
drank half a cup of coffee. Then he sat, as he had the day before,
staring straight in front of him, seeing nothing. After a time he placed
the girl's picture and the square mirror side by side on the table and
looked at them intently.

He rose, kicking his chair over backward, and went out to his claims
once more.

The men in the gulch had awakened. Most of them had finished the more
imperative demands of location the day before, so now they were more at
leisure to satisfy their curiosity and their love of comment by
inspecting the original discovery to which all this stampede was due. As
a consequence Peter found a great gathering on the _Jim Crow_. Some of
the men were examining chunks of ore, others were preparing to descend
the shafts, still others were engaged idly in reading the
location-notice tacked against a stub pine. One of the latter, the same
individual who had joked Peter in the saloon, caught sight of the
prospector as he approached.

"Hullo, Happy!" he called, pointing at the weather-beaten notice. "What
do you call this?" He winked at the rest. The history of Peter's losses
was well known.

"What?" asked Peter, strangely.

"You ain't got this readin' right. She says 'fifteen hundred feet'; the
law says she ought t' read 'fifteen hundred _linear_ feet.' Your claim
is n.g. I'm goin' t' jump her on you."

The statement was ridiculous; everybody knew it, and prepared to laugh,
loud-mouthed.

Peter, without a word, shot the speaker through the heart. Men said at
his trial that it was the most brutal and unprovoked murder they had
ever known.

VII

THE GIRL IN RED

"It isn't _that_ I object to," protested the Easterner, leaning forward
from the rough log wall to give emphasis to his words, "for I believe in
everyone having his fun his own way. If you're going in for orgies, why,
have 'em _good_ orgies, and be done with it. But my kick's on letting
these innocent young girls who are just out for the fun--it's awful!"

"It's hell!" assented the Westerner, cheerfully.

"Now, look at that pretty creature over there----"

The young miner followed his companion's gaze through the garishly lit
crowd.