s blood on your hands? Are you a murderess as well as a harlot?"

"Shame!" cried voices, mine among them. "That's tall language."

Strangely, and yet not strangely, sentiment had veered. We were
Americans--and had we been English that would have made no difference. It
was the Anglo-Saxon which gave utterance.

She crimsoned, defiant; laughed scornfully.

"You would not dare bait a man that way, sir. Blood on my hands? Not
blood; oh, no! He couldn't pan out blood."

"You killed him, woman?"

"Not yet. He's likely fleecing the public in the Big Tent at this very
moment."

"And what did you expect here, in my train?"

"A little manhood and a little chivalry, sir. I am going to Salt Lake and
I knew of no safer way."

"She jumped off a railway train, paw," bawled Daniel. "I seen her. An' she
axed for Mister Jenks, fust thing."

"I'll give you something to stop that yawp. Come mornin', we'll settle,
young feller," my friend Jenks growled.

"I did," she admitted. "I have seen Mr. Jenks; I have also seen Mr.
Beeson; I have seen others of you in Benton. I was glad to know of
somebody here. I rode on the construction train because it was the
quickest and easiest way."

"And those garments!" Captain Adams accused. "You wish to show your
shape, woman, to tempt men's eyes with the flesh?"

She smiled.

"Would you have me jump from a train in skirts, sir? Or travel far afoot
in crinoline? But to soothe your mind I will say that I wore these clothes
under my proper attire and cloak until the last moment. And if you turn me
away I shall cut my hair and continue as a boy."

"If you are for Salt Lake--where we are of the Lord's choosing and wish
none of you--there is the stage," he prompted shrewdly. "Go to the stage.
You cannot make this wagon train your instrument."

"The stage?" She slowly shook her head. "Why, I am too well known, sir,
take that as you will. And the stage does not leave until morning. Much
might happen between now and morning. I have nobody in Benton that I can
depend upon--nobody that I dare depend upon. And by railway, for the East?
No. That is too open a trail. I am running free of Benton and Pedro
Montoyo, and stage and train won't do the trick. I've thought that out."
She tossed back her head, deliberately turned. "Good-night, ladies and
gentlemen."

Involuntarily I started forward to intercept. The notion of her heading
into the vastness and the gloom was appalling; the inertness of that
i