“Well, what’s wrong with that?” he said soothingly. “She couldn’t go to the party in her riding habit all grimed up with dust. Nobody ever saw a girl at a party in a riding habit.”
“Well, the Phillips girl can go all right in a pink flannel skirt and miners’ boots,” declared his companion with combative heat, overlooking the fact that the festal array of the Phillips girl had been a subject of her special derision. “I guess she don’t have to have a pack burro to carry her duds.”
The Colonel realized that the moment for gentle reasoning was over. Only the girl’s burning curiosity kept down the wrathful tears evoked by a newly stirred jealousy. When she saw Black Dan’s daughter slide from her saddle into Barney Sullivan’s arms, an ejaculation of mingled pain and rage escaped her that had a note of suffering in it.
The Colonel, in his time, had known such pangs, a thousand times deeper and more terrible than Mitty had ever experienced. He turned to her smiling, not teasingly, but almost tenderly, and saw her face blighted like a rose dashed by rain, pitiful and a little ludicrous. The pitiful side of it was all that struck him.
“Did you see how mighty easy Barney is with her?” she stammered, making a desperate feminine attempt to speak lightly.
“A gentleman has to help a lady off her horse; he can’t let her climb down all by herself. Barney’s not that kind of a chump. You run along now and get ready. You haven’t got such a lot of time, for you’ve got to help set the tables for supper. And don’t you fret. I just feel that you’re going to look as nice as any girl in the place. That dress of yours is going to be just about right. Hurry up! Here they are.”
Mitty heard the advancing footfalls in the passage and the sound of approaching voices. As the tail of her pink calico skirt disappeared through the kitchen door, the Gracey party entered through the one that led to the office. There were greetings with the Colonel, and he sat down at their table to exchange the latest San Francisco gossip with the mining news of the district, and especially to hear the details of the strike in the Buckeye Belle.
CHAPTER III
THE NAME OF ALLEN
An hour later as the Colonel was leaving his room, the voices of Forsythe and a new-comer ascending the stairs struck on his ear. He leaned over the baluster and looked down at the tops of their approaching heads. Forsythe’s bald pate was followed by another, evidently a younger one, by the curly brown hair that covered it. A pair of shoulders in a dusty coat was beneath the head, and, as they mounted, the Colonel heard a voice of that cultured intonation which the far West scornfully regards as an outgrowth of effete civilizations. In short, the owner of the voice spoke like an Easterner who has had a college education.
The Colonel, if he was doubtful about the top of the head, knew the voice directly.