"To McGinty's gulch."
"What for?"
"Why, to live on, while my pardner and I do the assessment work."
"Then it's true! McGinty's been fillin' you full o' guff." The Colonel looked at her a little haughtily.
"See here: I ain't busy, as a rule, about other folks' funerals, but—" She looked at him curiously. "It's cold here; come in a minute." There was no hint of vulgar nonsense, but something very earnest in the pert little face that had been so pretty. They went in. "Order drinks," she said aside, "and don't talk before Jimmie."
She chaffed the bartender, and leaned idly against the counter. When a group of returned stampeders came in, she sat down at a rough little faro-table, leaned her elbows on it, sipped the rest of the stuff in her tumbler through a straw, and in the shelter of her arms set the straw in a knot-hole near the table-leg, and spirited the bad liquor down under the board. "Don't give me away," she said.
The Colonel knew she got a commission on the drinks, and was there to bring custom. He nodded.
"I hoped I'd see you in time," she went on hurriedly—"in time to warn you that McGinty was givin' you a song and dance."
"Hey?"
"Tellin" you a ghost story."