tains, and waited grimly for that
which was to come to him. True, there was the slight moisture on his
brow and on his under lip, but otherwise his agitation displayed itself
only in an occasional exuberance of metaphor.

For my own part, I remained unreconciled to these impending events.
"What will you do?" I asked Dan Anderson bitterly, "now that you've
been ass enough to allow this girl to come on down in here? You'll
have some one killed in this town before long. Besides, where can a
white girl live in this place? There's not a bedspread or a linen
sheet in the whole town."

"You talk like a chambermaid," said Dan Anderson, scornfully. "Do you
suppose a Wellesley girl, accustomed steady to high thinkin', can't get
along with a little plain livin' once in a while? As for women folks,
why can't Curly's girl take care of her? Does a chance lady caller in
this city need a _thousand_ women to entertain her? And
blankets--why, you know well enough, that blankets are better after
sundown here than much fine linen. Heart's Desire'll be here calm and
confident after this brief pageantry has passed from our midst."

As he spoke, he half turned and started, with a broken exclamation. I
followed his gaze. The street was vacant, barren of the accustomed
throng that usually awaited near the post-office the arrival of the
infrequent stagecoach. But there, at the mouth of the canon, almost
under the edge of the deepening shadow from the purple-topped mountain,
appeared the dusty top of the creeping vehicle that bore with it the
fate of Heart's Desire. Dan Anderson was pale now, and he put his hand
to his shirt collar, as though it were too tight; but he sat gazing
down the valley.

"That old fool, Bill Godfrey, is showin' them our sign," said he, in
exasperation. "That's a nice thing, ain't it, for Eastern Capital, or
a woman, to see the first thing?"

It was Charlie Lee, a landscape artist of Heart's Desire, who
subsequently turned his studio into a shop for sign-painting, who had
prepared the grim blazonry on the canon wall to which Dan Anderson had
made reference. "Prepare to meet thy God!" was the sign that Charlie
Lee had painted there. It was the last thing he did on his way out of
town. That was the day after certain outlaws had killed a leading
citizen. Charlie's emotions, of necessity, turned to paint for
expression; and there had never been any other funeral sermon. The
inhabitants had always left