“Sheriff,” said he, “to-night I expect to see this Nina Micheltoreña either here or at The Palmetto.” Rance never raised an eyebrow. “You do?” he remarked a moment later with studied carelessness. “Well, the boys had better look to their watches. I met that lady once.” Ashby shot him a look of inquiry. “She’s looking to that five thousand reward for Ramerrez,” he told him. Rance’s interest was growing by leaps and bounds though he continued to riffle the cards. “What? She’s after that?” “Sure thing. She knows something....” And having delivered himself of this Ashby strode over to the opposite side of the room where his coat and hat were hanging upon an elk horn. While putting them on he came face to face with the Girl who, having merely glanced in at the dance-hall, was returning to take up her duties behind the bar. “Well, I’ll have a look at that greaser up the road,” he said, addressing her, and then went on half-jocularly, half-seriously: “He may have his eye on the find in that stocking.” “You be darned!” was the Girl’s parting shot at him as he went out into the night. There was a long and impressive pause in which, apparently, the Sheriff was making up his mind to speak of matters scarcely incident to the situation that had gone before; while fully conscious that she was to be asked to give him an answer--she whose answer had been given many times--the Girl stood at the bar in an attitude of amused expectancy, and fussing with things there. At length, Rance, glancing shyly over his shoulder to make sure that they were alone, became all at once grave and his voice fell soft and almost caressingly. “Say, Girl!” The young woman addressed stole a look at him from under her lashes, all the while smiling a wise, little smile to herself, but not a word did she vouchsafe in reply. Again Rance called to her over his shoulder: “I say, Girl!” The Girl took up a glass and began to polish it. At last she deigned to favour him with “Hm?” which, apparently, he did not hear, for again a silence fell upon them. Finally, unable to bear the suspense any longer, the Sheriff threw down his cards on the table, and facing her he said: “Say, Girl, will you marry me?” “Nope,” returned the Girl with a saucy toss of the head. Rance rose and strode over to the bar. Looking fixedly at her with his steely grey eyes he demanded the reason. “’Cause you got a wife in Noo Orleans--or so the mountain breezes say,” was her ready answer. Rance gave no sign of having heard her. Throwing away the cigar he was smoking he asked in the most nonchalant manner: “Give me some of them cigars--my kind.” Reaching for a box behind her the Girl placed it before him. “Them’s your kind, Jack.” From an inside pocket of his broadcloth coat Rance took out an elaborate cigar-case, filled it slowly, leaving out one cigar which he placed between his lips. When he had this one going satisfactorily he rested both elbows on the edge of the bar, and said bluntly: