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“I only told her to sit still or she’d bleed to death,” said Kane curtly.

“Humph!–she jabbered something about your being ‘strong’ and knowing just how to handle her. Well, it can’t be helped now. I think I came in time for the worst of it and have drawn their fire. Don’t do it again. The next time a woman with a cut head and long hair tackles you, fill up her scalp with lint and tannin, and pack her off to some of the big shops and make THEM pick it out.” And with a good-humored nod he started off to finish his interrupted visits.

With a vague sense of remorse, and yet a consciousness of some injustice done him, Mr. Kane resumed his occupation with filters and funnels, and mortars and triturations. He was so gloomily preoccupied that he did not, as usual, glance out of the window, or he would have observed the mining stranger of the previous night before it. It was not until the man’s bowed shoulders blocked the light of the doorway that he looked up and recognized him. Kane was in no mood to welcome his appearance. His presence, too, actively recalled the last night’s adventure of which he was a witness–albeit a sympathizing one. Kane shrank from the illusions which he felt he would be sure to make. And with his present ill luck, he was by no means sure that his ministrations even to HIM had been any more successful than they had been to the Frenchwoman. But a glance at his good-humored face and kindling eyes removed that suspicion. Nevertheless, he felt somewhat embarrassed and impatient, and perhaps could not entirely conceal it. He forgot that the rudest natures are sometimes the most delicately sensitive to slights, and the stranger had noticed his manner and began apologetically.

“I allowed I’d just drop in anyway to tell ye that these thar pills you giv’ me did me a heap o’ good so far–though mebbe it’s only fair to give the others a show too, which I’m reckoning to do.” He paused, and then in a submissive confidence went on: “But first I wanted to hev you excuse me for havin’ asked all them questions about that high-toned lady last night, when it warn’t none of my business. I am a darned fool.”

Mr. Kane instantly saw that it was no use to keep up his attitude of secrecy, or impose upon the ignorant, simple man, and said hurriedly: “Oh no. The lady is very well known. She is the proprietress of a restaurant down the street–a house open to everybody. Her name is Madame le Blanc; you may have heard of her before?”

To his surprise the man exhibited no diminution of interest nor change of sentiment at this intelligence. “Then,” he said slowly, “I reckon I might get to see her again. Ye see, Mr. Kane, I rather took a fancy to her general style and gait–arter seein’ her in that fix last night. It was rather like them play pictures on the stage. Ye don’t think she’d make any fuss to seein’ a rough old ‘forty-niner’ like me?”

“Hardly,” said Kane, “but there might be some objection from her gentlemen friends,” he added, with a smile,–“Jack Lane, a gambler, who keeps a faro bank in her rooms, and Jimmy O’Ryan, a prize-fighter, who is one of her ‘chuckers out.'”

His further relation of Madame le Blanc’s entourage apparently gave the miner no concern. He looked at Kane, nodded, and repeated slowly and appreciatively: “Yes, keeps a gamblin’ and faro bank and a prize-fighter–I reckon that might be about her gait and style too. And you say she lives”–

He stopped, for at this moment a man entered the shop quickly, shut the door behind him, and turned the key in the lock. It was done so quickly that Kane instinctively felt that the man had been loitering in the vicinity and had approached from the side street. A single glance at the intruder’s face and figure showed him that it was the bully of whom he had just spoken. He had seen that square, brutal face once before, confronting the police in a riot, and had not forgotten it. But today, with the flush of liquor on it, it had an impatient awkwardness and confused embarrassment that he could not account for. He did not comprehend that the genuine bully is seldom deliberate of attack, and is obliged–in common with many of the combative lower animals–to lash himself into a previous fury of provocation. This probably saved him, as perhaps some instinctive feeling that he was in no immediate danger kept him cool. He remained standing quietly behind the counter. Allen glanced around carelessly, looking at the shelves.