'You would be ready to act as captain if you were elected?' Jack Armitstead asked.
'Quite ready. I may tell you, though I don't wish it to go farther, that I have been an officer in the British army, and several times been engaged in police duty in a troubled country, where I have had to deal with as hard characters in their way as these men. I have no wish to be captain at all; I am almost a new chum, and many of you have been a year on the gold-fields. I shall be quite willing to serve under any one that may be elected; I have no wish whatever for the command.'
'All right, partner, we will talk it over and fix about who had best be asked. I guess in two or three days we can make up the number. The boys were pretty well riled last night at Wyoming's goings on, and if it hadn't have been that they did not want to make a muss, with that girl in the saloon, I fancy some of them would not have gone without shooting.'
The next evening the saloon was emptier than usual; there were but two or three men at the bar when Ned Hampton, who had finished his supper early, went over to it. The girl herself, contrary to her custom, came across to take his order.
'Good evening, miss,' he said; 'I hear you nearly had trouble here again last night.'
'Very nearly. I cannot think why men here will always pull out pistols; why don't they stand up and fight as they do at home? It is horrible. There have been four men killed in the saloon while we have been here. I thought they would be rough, but I had no idea that it would be like this.'
'It is not a good place for a woman,' Ned Hampton said, bluntly, 'especially for a young and pretty one. Your father ought to know better than to bring you here.'
She shrugged her shoulders.
'It pays,' she said, 'and they are never rude to me.'
She turned away.