"Dear old Bob," she touched his cheek as she passed him with a light
caress and went on into the room beyond to get her dancing slippers.

It was later that evening that Jose began his unceasing importunities to
see Pearl dance in the town hall. A stern and surprised veto of this
plan was his immediate answer. But Jose was the most convincing and
plausible of pleaders.

"But, Gallito," he cried almost piteously, "since Mrs. Nitschkan has
watched my manners I have been like an angel. No more does the camp say
that this hill is haunted, you know that."

"I told you what you'd get if you didn't stop hootin' at people who was
passin'," remarked Mrs. Nitschkan, knocking the ashes from her pipe out
on the hearth and then carefully refilling it. "But you're none so good
now that you need brag. I don't know that playin' monkey tricks to
frighten folks ain't just as good a way to put in the time as sittin'
'round holdin' hands with Marthy Thomas."

"Sadie!" Mrs. Thomas drew forth her handkerchief and prepared to shed
the ready tear. "How you can have the heart to talk so to a woman that
ain't buried her husband twelve months! Mr. Jose ain't even thought of
takin' the liberties you sit there accusin' him of. If I had a live
husband to pertect me, you wouldn't dare treat me like what you do.
Whenever you miss a shot, or get fooled on a prospect, or get some money
won away from you, you come back to our little cabin an' sit lookin' at
me like you was a wolf an' talkin' like you was a she-bear. And--and
it's darned hard, that's what it is."

"If you were a man, Nitschkan," Jose drew himself up truculently, "you
would indeed answer for such speeches, and you would not have converted
me so easily, either. I have no fear of men." This was quite true, he
had not, but his eye quailed and drooped before the steady gaze of Mrs.
Nitschkan.

"Come, come," said Gallito peremptorily, "I am glad to see you all each
evening about my fireside, but I will have no arguing nor quarreling,
understand that. A man's house is his castle."

Jose diplomatically dropped the subject, which did not mean that he had
abandoned his plan for one moment. He merely waited a more convenient
season. His strongest arguments were that it was not an infrequent
occurrence for Gallito to entertain guests of his own nationality in his
mountain cabin. "And my hair!" cried Jose pathetically. "It would be a
crown of glory to Nitschkan if she had it; but it is a sh