ss would permit them, while the
women accepted their attentions in the spirit in which they were
offered, calculating, watching, with an eye trained to the highest
pitch of mercenary motive, for the direction whence the greatest
benefit was to come.

Beasley was watching too. He knew that the Padre's threat had been no
idle one, but he meant to forestall its operation. The Padre was away
to his home by now. Nothing that he could do could operate until the
morning, when these men were sober. He had got this night, at least,
in which to satisfy his evil whim.

His opportunity came sooner than he expected. One of the girls, quite
a young creature, whose originally-pretty face was now distorted and
bloated by the life she lived, suddenly appealed to him. She jumped up
from the bench on which she had been sitting listening to the drunken
attentions of a stranger who bored her, and challenged the
saloon-keeper with a laugh and an ingratiating wink.

"Say, you gray-headed old beer-slinger," she cried, "how about that
'party' call you'd fixed up for us? Ain't ther' nuthin' doin' since
that mutt with the thin yeller thatch got busy shootin'? Say, he got
you all scared to a pea shuck."

She laughed immoderately, and, swaying drunkenly, was caught by the
attentive stranger.

"Quit it, Mamie," protested one of the other girls. "If you want
another racket I don't. You're always raisin' hell."

"Quit yourself," shrieked Mamie in sudden anger. "I ain't scared of a
racket." She turned to Beasley, who was pouring out a round of drinks
for Abe Allinson, now so drunk that he had to support himself against
the counter. "Say, you don't need to be scared, that feller's out o'
the way now," she jeered. "Wot say? Guess it would be a 'scream.'"

Beasley handed the change of a twenty-dollar bill to Abe and turned to
the girl.

"Sure it would," he agreed promptly, his face beaming. Then he added
cunningly: "But it's you folks are plumb scared."

"Who the h---- scared of a gal like that?" Mamie yelled at him, her
eyes blazing. "I ain't. Are you, Lulu? You, Kit?" She turned to the
other women, but ignored the protesting Sadie.

Lulu sprang from the arms of a man on whose shoulder she had been
reclining.

"Scared?" she cried. "Come right on. I'm game. Beasley's keen to give
her a twistin'--well, guess it's always up to us to oblige." And she
laughed immoderately.

Kit joined in. She cared nothing so long as she was with the majority.