"The train's camped near the wagon trail, back at the river. You can't miss it. It's mainly a Mormon train, that some of us Gentiles have thrown in with. Ask for Cap'n Hyrum Adams' train. My name's Jenks--George Jenks. You'll find me there. I'll hold open for you till ten o'clock--yes, till noon. I mean that you shall come. It'll be the makin' of you." I arose and gave him my hand; shook with him. "And I hope to come," I asserted with glow of energy. "You've set me upon my feet, Mr. Jenks, for I was desperate. You're the first honest man I've met in Benton." "Tut, tut," he reproved. "There are others. Benton's not so bad as you think it. But you were dead ripe; the buzzards scented you. Now you go straight to your hotel, unless you'll spend the night with me. No? Then I'll see you in the mornin'. I'll risk your gettin' through the street alone." "You may, sir," I affirmed. "At present I'm not worth further robbing." "Except for your gun and clothes," he rejoined. "But if you'll use the one you'll keep the other." Gazing neither right nor left I strode resolutely for the exit. Now I had an anchor to windward. Sometimes just one word will face a man about when for lack of that mere word he was drifting. Of the games and the people I wished only to be rid forever; but at the exit I was halted by a hand laid upon my arm, and a quick utterance. "Not going? You will at least say good-night." I barely paused, replying to her. "Good-night." Still she would have detained me. "Oh, no, no! Not this way. It was a mistake. I swear to you I am not to be blamed. Please let me help you. I don't know what you've heard--I don't know what has been said about me--you are angry----" I twitched free, for she should not work upon me again. With such as she, a vampire and yet a woman, a man's safety lay not in words but in unequivocal action. "Good-night," I bade thickly, half choked by that same nausea, now hot. Bearing with me a satisfying but somehow annoyingly persistent imprint of moist blue eyes under shimmering hair, and startled white face plashed on one cheek with vivid crimson, and small hand left extended empty, I roughly stalked on and out, free of her, free of the Big Tent, her lair. All the way to the hotel, through the garish street, I nursed my wrath while it gnawed at me like the fox in the Spartan boy's bosom; and once in my room, which fortuitously had no other tenants at this hour, I had to lean out of the narrow window for sheer relief in the coolness. Surely pride had had a fall this night. There "roared" Benton--the Benton to which, as to prosperity, I had hopefully purchased my ticket ages ago. And here cowered I, holed up--pillaged, dishonored, worthless in even this community: a young fellow in jaunty frontier costume, new and brave, but really reduced to sackcloth and ashes; a young fellow only a husk, as false in appearance as the Big Tent itself and many another of those canvas shells.