To 'Tana--jubilant with her victory over her instinctive antagonist, the captain--all the evening was made for her pleasure, and she floated in the paradise of sixteen years; and the world where people danced was the only world worth knowing. "I will be good now--I can be as good as an angel since I've got even with the captain." She whispered those words to Lyster, whose hand was clasping hers, whose arm was about her waist, as they, drifted around the rather small circle, to a waltz played on a concertina and a banjo. She looked up at him, mutely asking him to believe her. Her desire for revenge satisfied, she could be a very good girl now. It was just then that Overton, who stood outside the window, glanced in and saw her lovely upturned face--saw the red lips move in some pouting protest, to which Lyster smiled but looked doubtfully down at her. To the man watching them from without, the two seemed always so close--so confidential. At times he even wondered if Lyster had not learned more than himself of her life before that day at Akkomi's camp. All that evening Dan had not once entered the room where they danced, or added in any way to their merry-making. He had stood outside the door most of the time, or sometimes rested a little way from it on a store box, where he smoked placidly, and inspected the people who gathered to the dance. All the invited guests came early, and perfect harmony reigned within. A few of the unsavory order of citizens had sauntered by, as though taking note of the pleasures from which they were excluded. But it was not until almost twelve o'clock--just after Overton had turned away from watching the waltz--that a pistol shot rang out in the street, and several dancers halted. Some of the men silently moved to the door, but just then the door was opened by Overton, who looked in. "It was only my gun went off by accident," he said, carelessly. "So don't let me stampede the party. Go on with your music." The stranger, Harris, was nearest the door, and essayed to pass out, but Overton touched him on the arm. "Not just yet," he said hurriedly. "Don't come out or others will follow, and there'll be trouble. Keep them in some way." Then the door closed. The concertina sobbed and shrieked out its notes, and drowned a murmur of voices on the outside. One man lay senseless close to the doorstep, and four more men with two women stood a little apart from him. "If another shot is fired, your houses will be torn down over your heads to-morrow," said Overton, threateningly; "and some of you will not be needing an earthly habitation by that time, either." "Fury! It is Overton!" muttered one of the men to another. "They told us he wasn't in this thing." "What for you care?" demanded the angry tones of a Dutch woman. "What difference that make--eh? If so be as we want to dance--well, then, we go in and dance--you make no mistake."