Who is he?"

"All right, I'll introduce you," drawled Brown. "Meet Panhandle Smith,
from Texas."

"Well," she mused, fastening her hands in the lapels of his coat. "I
thought you'd have a high-sounding handle.... Will you dance with me?"

"Sure, but I'm afraid I step pretty high and wide."

They entered another garish room, around which a throng of couples spun
and wagged and tramped and romped. Pan danced with the girl, and
despite the jostling of the heavy-footed miners acquitted himself in a
manner he thought was creditable for him. He had not been one of the
dancing cowboys.

"That was a treat after those clodhoppers," she said, when the dance
ended. "You're a modest boy, Panhandle. You've got me guessing. I'm
not used to your kind--out here.... Let's go have a drink. I've got
to have whisky."

That jarred somewhat upon Pan and, as she led him back to Brown and
then both of them to an empty table, he began to grasp the significance
of these bare-armed white-faced girls with their dark-hollowed eyes and
scarlet lips.

She drank straight whisky, and it was liquor that burned Pan like fire.
Brown, too, made a wry face.

"Panhandle, are you going to stay here in Marco?" she inquired, leaning
on her white round arms.

"Yes, if I find my folks," he replied simply. "They lost all they
had--ranch, cattle, horses--and moved out here. I never knew until I
went back home. Makes me feel pretty mean. But Dad was doing well
when I left home."

"Mother--sister, too?"

"Yes. And my sister Alice must be quite a girl now," mused Pan.

"And you're going to help them?" she asked softly.

"I should smile," said Pan feelingly.

"Then, you mustn't buy drinks for me--or run after me--as I was going
to make you do."

Pan was at a loss for a reply to that frank statement. And as he gazed
at her, conscious of a subtle change, someone pounded him on the back
and then fell on his neck.

"My Gawd--if heah ain't Panhandle!" burst out a husky voice.

Pan got up as best he could, and pulled free from the fellow. The
voice had prepared Pan for an old acquaintance, and when he saw that
lean red face and blue eyes he knew them.

"Well, I'll be darned. Blinky Moran! You son of a gun! Drunk--the
same as when I saw you last."

"Aw, Pan, I ain't jes drunk," he replied. "Mebbe I was--but shein'
you--ole pard--my Gawd! It's like cold sweet water on my hot face."

"Blink, I'm sure glad to see you, drunk or s