ed into
Jim's quarters. He had no desire--or at least so he told himself very
emphatically--to see either one of them.

"I've hit the trail hard to-day, Jim," he said as Jim followed him and
King closed the door. "And I'm dead tired and as hungry as a bear. What
shape's the cupboard in?"

"Fine," returned Spalding hospitably. "You know me, Mark."

So it happened that while Gloria fought her losing battle all alone,
Mark King sat at Spalding's table, not a hundred yards away, and made a
silent meal of coffee and bread of Jim's crude baking, and a dubious,
warmed-over stew. Thereafter King threw himself down on Jim's bunk and
the two smoked their pipes. With nothing in particular to be said,
virtually nothing was said.

"Needn't tell anybody I'm here, Jim." King was knocking the ashes out of
his pipe. "I haven't any business with the folks in there. But keep your
eye peeled for Ben, will you? The minute he comes I want to see him."

"Maybe," suggested Spalding, "his girl brought word?"

"No. Ben is in Coloma. Gratton and Miss Gaynor and Mrs. Gaynor would
have come up from the city, you know. That means they would have come
through Placerville or Truckee."

"Guess so," agreed Spalding. "That's right. I'll set outside where I can
watch for Ben. Goin' to take a snooze?"

"Yes."

And after lying ten minutes staring up at the ceiling above him King
went to sleep.

"Must of been goin' some to-day," meditated the man who was once more on
his bench outside the door. "King looks tuckered."

He sat through the thickening shadows watching the stars come trooping
into the darkening sky, hearkening to the night breeze among the trees,
and the thin singing noises of insects. An hour or so later he heard
horses. "That would be Ben, now," was his first thought. His second was
that it might be some one else, and that there was no sense waking a
tired man for nothing. So he went down toward the house. He saw two men
dismount and tie their horses; he saw the door open and Gratton come
out. The horsemen went up to the porch. Neither was Ben Gaynor. One, as
he passed in through the light-filled doorway, was a little grey man
whom Jim had never seen before; the other man, it happened, he knew.
Rather well by sight and reputation, a good-for-nothin' scalawag, as
Jim catalogued him, name of Steve Jarrold. The door closed after them
and Jim went back to his bench.

* * * * *

In the house they were