comments expressed in lowered
voices.

As they crowded around her Lucy Dalles peered in at the door, a
contemptuous sneer on her lips.

"Have a good time, old girl!" she muttered, grinding her little white
teeth. "But I learned something to-day that'll set _you_ back a step
or two. Get me to doll you up, will you, you impossible roughneck?
You'll pay for that!"

CHAPTER XXIII

DRUMMOND WEAVES A DREAM

Shortly after Jerkline Jo left the beauty parlor of Lucy Dalles,
mischievously bent on giving Ragtown a harmless little shock, Al
Drummond sidled up to the old prospector at the bar in the Palace Dance
Hall.

"Hello, old-timer," he said with a cheerful smile. "How's prospecting
these days?"

The old desert rat fixed a filmy eye on him. "Have a shot," he invited
with the suggestion of a thickening tongue.

"Thanks, old hoss. Don't care if I do. That is, if you'll have one
with me."

They drank, and Drummond promptly ordered another. A lowering of his
left eyelid gave the bartender his instructions, and a sprinkling of
powder found its way into the glass that was thumped before Basil Filer.

Not long after this he became agreeable to anything that Al Drummond
might suggest. Al took him from place to place, always standing his
share of the exorbitant prices demanded in Ragtown, and finally
suggested that they try their marksmanship as a diversion.

"Good!" agreed Filer gutturally. "Little girl, eh? Pretty!" He
winked knowingly at Drummond. "I wanta have talk with her. I know who
she is. B'en trailin' her fer years. Le's go, pardner. You're goo'
scout. So'm I--hey?"

"You bet your sweet life you're a good scout! Come on--we'll have a
time to-night."

Drummond had previously sent a boy to Lucy with a note informing her
that the come-on was about ripe for plucking, and telling her to put
some one else in charge of the gallery and be in readiness. Lucy had
sent out and found the man who at times relieved her, and when Drummond
and the old gold-seeker lurched up she was free to act as the
circumstances might demand.

The two men fired at the targets for a little, Filer failing to display
the same wonderful marksmanship which he had done earlier in the
evening. Eventually Lucy invited the two to go back into the little
cabin in the rear of the gallery where she carried on her trifling
domestic activities. Filer readily agreed to this, and presently the
three were seated around a tabl