y
all Buckeye had passed in procession before the little house without
exhibiting any indignation or protest. That night, however, it seemed as
if the events for which the Committee was waiting were really impending.
The adult female population of Buckeye consisted of seven women--wives
of miners. That they would submit tamely to the introduction of a young,
pretty, and presumably dangerous member of their own sex was not to
be supposed. But whatever protest they made did not pass beyond their
conjugal seclusion, and was apparently not supported by their husbands.
Two or three of them, under the pretext of sympathy of sex, secured
interviews with the fair intruder, the result of which was not, however,
generally known. But a few days later Mrs. "Bob" Carpenter--a somewhat
brick-dusty blonde--was observed wearing some black netting and a
heavily flounced skirt, and Mrs. Shuttleworth in her next visit to
Fiddletown wore her Paisley shawl affixed to her chestnut hair by a
bunch of dog-roses, and wrapped like a plaid around her waist. The seven
ladies of Buckeye, who had never before met, except on domestic errands
to each other's houses or on Sunday attendance at the "First Methodist
Church" at Fiddletown, now took to walking together, or in their
husbands' company, along the upper bank of the river--the one boulevard
of Buckeye. The third day after Miss Mendez' arrival they felt the
necessity of immediate shopping expeditions to Fiddletown. This
operation had hitherto been confined to certain periods, and restricted
to the laying in of stores of rough household stuffs; but it now
apparently included a wider range and more ostentatious quality. Parks'
Emporium no longer satisfied them, and this unexpected phase of
the situation was practically brought home to the proprietor in the
necessity of extending the more inoffensive and peaceful part of his
stock. And when, towards the end of the week, a cartload of pretty
fixtures, mirrors, and furniture arrived at the tienda, there was
a renewed demand at the Emporium for articles not in stock, and the
consequent diverting of custom to Fiddletown. Buckeye found itself face
to face with a hitherto undreamt of and preposterous proposition. It
seemed that the advent of the strange woman, without having yet produced
any appreciable effect upon the men, had already insidiously inveigled
the adult female population into ostentatious extravagance.

At the end of a week the little adobe