dismounted, and passed into the bar-room. And he was perfectly content, when a moment later he lifted the still sleeping Olly in his arms and bore her swiftly yet cautiously to his room. To awaken the sleeping Pete on the floor above, and drag him half-dressed and bewildered into the presence of the unconscious child, as she lay on Jack Hamlin's own bed, half buried in a heap of shawls and rugs, was only the work of another moment. "Why, Mars Jack! Bress de Lord--it's a chile!" said Pete, recoiling in sacred awe and astonishment. "Hold your jaw!" said Jack, in a fierce whisper, "you'll waken her! Listen to me, you chattering idiot. Don't waken her, if you want to keep the bones in your creaking old skeleton whole enough for the doctors to buy. Let her sleep as long as she can. If she wakes up and asks after me, tell her I'm gone for her brother. Do you hear? Give her anything she asks for--except--the truth! What are you doing, you old fool?" Pete was carefully removing the mountain of shawls and blankets that Jack had piled upon Olly. "'Fore God, Mars Jack--you's smuddering dat chile!" was his only response. Nevertheless Jack was satisfied with a certain vague tenderness in his manipulation, and said curtly, "Get me a horse!" "It ain't to be did, Mars Jack; de stables is all gone--cleaned! Dey's a rush over to One Horse Gulch, all day!" "There are three horses at the door," said Jack, with wicked significance. "For de love of God, Mars Jack, don't ye do dat!" ejaculated Pete, in unfeigned and tremulous alarm. "Dey don't take dem kind o' jokes yer worth a cent--dey'd be doin' somefin' awful to ye, sah--shuah's yer born!" But Jack, with the child lying there peaceably in his own bed, and the Three Voices growing husky in the bar-room below, regained all his old audacity. "I haven't made up my mind," continued Jack, coolly, "which of the three I'll take, but you'll find out from the owner when I do! Tell him that Mr. Jack Hamlin left his compliments and a mare and buggy for him. You can say that if he keeps the mare from breaking and gives her her head down hill, she can do her mile inside of 2.45. Hush! not a word! Bye-bye." He turned, lifted the shawl from the fresh cheek of the sleeping Olly, kissed her, and shaking his fist at Pete, vanished. For a few moments the negro listened breathlessly. And then there came the sharp, quick clatter of hoofs from the rocky road below, and he sank dejectedly at the foot of the bed. "He's gone--done it! Lord save us! but it's a hangin' matter yer!" And even as he spoke Mr. Jack Hamlin, mounted on the fleet mustang that had been ridden by the Potential Voice, with his audacious face against the red sunrise and his right shoulder squarely advanced, was butting away the morning mists that rolled slowly along the river road to One Horse Gulch. CHAPTER VI. MR. DUMPHY IS PERPLEXED BY A MOVEMENT IN REAL ESTATE.