'If she has gone, then I am going, too,' he told himself. 'And I am going to bring her back.'
He turned his horse and rode swiftly to Sanchia's Town. They would have gone that way, on to Big Run, San Ramon and down to the railroad. In such a case he would have word of them in the mining-camp. In his present mood he required only a few minutes to come to the new settlement. Had he been less absorbed in his own thoughts he must have been amazed at what he saw about him. He had known men before now to make towns upon dry bare ground and in a mere handful of days; not even he, with his first-hand knowledge of such venturings, had ever seen the like of Sanchia's Town. The spirit which had initiated it into the world was still its driving spirit. It sprawled, it overflowed its boundaries incessantly, it hooted and yelled and sang. It grew like a formless mass lumped about fermenting yeast. Already there were shacks and tents up and down both sides of Dry Gulch and strung along in the gravelly bed. There were gambling-houses, monstrosities which named themselves hotels and rooming-houses, stores, lunch counters. The streets were crooked alleys; everywhere dust puffed up and thickened and never settled; teams and jolting wagons and pack burros disputed the congested way; there were seasoned miners, old-time prospectors, going their quiet ways; there were tenderfeet of all descriptions. Not less than five thousand human souls had already found their way to Sanchia's Town and more were coming.
In all of this to-day, Howard took scant interest. His major emotion was one of annoyance. Among such a seething crowd where should he ask of the Longstreets? He sat his horse in a narrow space between a lunch counter and a canvas bar-room and stared about him. Then he saw that the solitary figure perched upon a box before the lunch counter was Yellow Barbee. He called to him quickly.
Barbee's young eyes, which he turned promptly, were still eloquent of an amorous joyousness within Barbee's young soul. He bestowed his glance only fleetingly upon Howard, said a brief 'Hello, Al,' and turned immediately to the cause of the obvious flutter in Barbee's bosom. Howard expected to see Sanchia Murray behind the counter. Instead he saw a young girl of a little less than Barbee's age, roguish-eyed, black-haired, red-mouthed, plump and saucy. Her sleeves were up; her arms were brown and round; there was flour on them.
'Where are the Longstreets, Barbee?' asked Howard.
'Gone,' announced Barbee cheerfully. And as though that closed the matter to his entire satisfaction, he demanded: 'Come on, Pet; be a good kid. Going with me, ain't you?'
Pet laughed and thereafter turned up her pretty nose with obviously mock disdain.
'Dancing old square dances and polkas, I'd bet a stack of wheats,' she scoffed. 'Why, there ain't any more real jazz in your crowd of cow-hands than there is in an old man's home. What do you take me for, anyway?'
'Aw, come on,' grinned Barbee. 'You're joshing. If it's jazz you want——'
'Look here,' said Howard impatiently. 'I'm just asking a question, and
I'll get out of your way. Where did they go?'