.

"This was _my_ dance!" the fellow was expostulating. "She promised it
to me."

"Aw, he's drunk," repeated the Pilgrim, turning to Billy. "It's Gus
Svenstrom. He's got it in for me because I fired him last week. Throw
him out! Miss Bridger isn't going to dance with a drunken stiff like
him."

"Oh, I'll go--I ain't so drunk I've got to be carried!" retorted the
other, and pushed his way angrily through the crowd.

Flora had kept her place. Though the color had gone from her cheeks,
she seemed to have no intention of quitting the quadrille, so there
was nothing for Billy to do but get off the floor and leave her to her
partner. He went out after the Swede, and, seeing him headed for the
saloon across from the hotel, followed aimlessly. He was not quite
comfortable in the hall, anyway, for he had caught Mama Joy eying him
strangely, and he thought she was wondering why he had not asked her
to dance.

Charming Billy was not by nature a diplomat; it never once occurred to
him that he would better treat Mama Joy as if that half minute in the
kitchen had never been. He had said good evening to her when he first
met her that evening, and he considered his duty done. He did not want
to dance with her, and that was, in his opinion, an excellent reason
for not doing so. He did not like to have her watching him with those
big, round, blue eyes of hers, so he stayed in the saloon for a while
and only left it to go to supper when some one said that the dance
crowd was over there. There might be some chance that would permit him
to eat with Flora.

There are moments in a town when, even with many people coming and
going, one may look and see none. When Billy closed the door of the
saloon behind him and started across to the hotel, not a man did he
see, though there was sound in plenty from the saloons and the hotel
and the hall. He was nearly half across the street when two men came
into sight and met suddenly just outside a window of the hotel. Billy,
in the gloom of starlight and no moon, could not tell who they were;
he heard a sharp sentence or two, saw them close together, heard a
blow. Then they broke apart and there was the flash of a shot. One
man fell and the other whirled about as if he would run, but Billy was
then almost upon them and the man turned back and stood looking down
at the fallen figure.

"Damn him, he pulled a knife on me!" he cried defensively. Billy saw
that it was the Pilgrim.

"Who is he?" he