ts return
to their rooms, staggering along the hall and fumbling at their doors;
voices echoed here and there, and one fellow, mistaking his domicile
entirely, struggled with her latch in a vain endeavour to gain
entrance. She was upon her feet, when companions arrived and led the
invader elsewhere, their loud laughter dying away in the distance. It
was long after this before nature finally conquered and the girl slept
outstretched on the hard cot, the first faint grey of dawn already
visible in the eastern sky.

She was young, though, and she awoke rested and refreshed, in spite of
the fact that her body ached at first from the discomfort of the cot.
The sunlight rested in a sheet of gold on her drawn curtain, and the
silence of the morning, following so unexpectedly the dismal racket of
the night, seemed to fairly shock her into consciousness. Could this
be Haskell? Could this indeed be the inferno into which she had been
precipitated from the train in the darkness of the evening before? She
stared about at the bare, board walls, the bullet-scarred mirror, the
cracked pitcher, before she could fully reassure herself; then stepped
upon the disreputable rug, and crossed to the open window.

Haskell at nine in the morning bore but slight resemblance to that same
environment during the hours of darkness--especially on a night
immediately following pay-day at the mines. As Miss Donovan, now
thoroughly awake, and obsessed by the memory of those past hours of
horror, cautiously drew aside the corner of torn curtain, and gazed
down upon the deserted street below, she could scarcely accept the
evidence of her own eyes.

True, there were many proofs visible of the wild riot of the evening
before--torn papers, emptied bottles, a shattered sign or two, an
oil-lamp blown into bits by some well-directed shot, a bat lying in the
middle of the road, and a dejected pony or two, still at the
hitching-rack, waiting a delayed rider. But, except for these mute
reminiscences of past frolic, the long street seemed utterly dead, the
doors of saloons and dance-halls closed, the dust swirling back and
forth to puffs of wind, the only moving object visible being a gaunt,
yellow dog trotting soberly past.

However, it was not upon this view of desolation that Miss Donovan's
eyes clung. They had taken all this in at a glance, startled, scarcely
comprehending, but the next instant wandered to the marvellous scene
revealed beyond that