"Private poker-room," Mr. Ryder announced with pride. "Enough coin's changed hands here to buy the greatest gold-mine in Nevada! Make yourself comfortable, Ma'am. Now, who was it you was looking for?"
"Do you recall Jake's place, the dance-hall that was burned down?" Willa began.
"Like as if it was yesterday!" The little man seated himself in the chair opposite and put his hat on the floor beside him. "Topaz was a roaring gehenna in them days and one night Red-Eye Pete started in to shoot out the lamps at Jake's. One of 'em exploded and it was all over in no time. Red-Eye himself and Ray Clancy, the pianner-player, and two o' the girls was lost. I got a busted arm and most o' my hair singed off going in after 'em, but 'twarn't no use."
"You knew the—the girls?" Willa had difficulty in controlling her voice.
"Sure I did! Blonde Annie and Miss Violet. Annie was just a—a girl like you'd expect, Ma'am, but Miss Violet, she was a regular lady. Young widder with a toddling baby and a voice like an angel.—Say, that's funny!" He broke off, staring at her. "It ain't about her that you've come, is it?"
Willa nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"Well, don't that beat—beat everything!" Mr. Ryder recovered himself in some confusion. "Two or three years ago a lawyer shark from New York City—a man named North, I remember—come here asking an all-fired lot o' questions, and only last fall another feller turned up on the same game. I told 'em all I knew, which warn't much. They called themselves Murphy, Miss Vi and her husband did, but I guess that warn't their right name. Nice young feller he was, but quiet and sickly. When he died we wanted to pass round the hat for the widder, like we always do, but she wouldn't have it; she got work instead at Jake's, singing and dancing, but she kept everyone in their place and there warn't a man here that wouldn't have stood up for her till the last gun fired."
"And the baby—do you remember it at all?"
"Little Billie?" Mr. Ryder laughed. "There ain't enough babies around a mining camp to make you forget any one of 'em, and you couldn't rightly forget Billie if you tried. Fat and curly-headed she was, and the spunkiest little critter you ever see, always falling down hard and scrambling up again by herself and laughing to beat four of a kind. Her ma tried to keep her home, but there warn't a chance; she went wherever her little legs would carry her, and the whole town looked out for her. She must be a woman grown, now."
"I don't suppose you would recognize her if you should see her," Willa observed wistfully.