Belasco’s stirring play of “The Girl of the Golden West” was first produced at the new Belasco Theatre, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 3, 1905. It is a fabric of situations contrived for the advantageous display of that old, familiar, everlasting, always effective theatrical personage, the Rough Diamond. The Girl was beautiful, intrepid, passionate, vivacious; the soul of innocence; the incarnation of virtue; the blooming rose of vigorous health; and she could swear fluently, play cards, and shoot to kill. She kept a drinking shop, she was adored by all “the boys”; and the fame of her probity and her many fascinations filled the countryside of California, in the halycon days of ’49. That fortunate State, according to the testimony of novelists and bards, was densely populated at that time by girls of this enchanting order; but this particular _Girl_ seems to have transcended all rivals. She was beloved by a picturesque and expeditious outlaw, _Dick Johnson_, known as _Ramirez_, who had gained brilliant renown by means of highway robbery, and likewise she was beloved by the local _Sheriff_, _Jack Rance_, a grim, obnoxious officer, self-dedicated to the wicked business of causing that outlaw’s arrest and death. Both those lovers were ardent, and, between those two fires, her situation was difficult; but she always rose to the occasion, and when her outlaw was entrapped by his pursuer the ingenuity of her love and the dexterity of her stratagem delivered him from bondage, and, upon his promise of reformation and integrity, launched him upon a new and better career. The most conspicuous display of her passionate devotion and adroit skill occurred on a night when he was captured in her dwelling. The circumstances were essentially dramatic,--because the _Girl_ and her favored swain were storm-bound in a mountain cabin, whither the _Sheriff_ had tracked his prey; and the robber had been shot and wounded, so that there seemed to be no method of escape for him, till the _Girl_ proposed a game of poker with his foe, staking herself against the liberty of her sweetheart, and won it by successful emulation of the _Heathen Chinee_,--substituting “an ace full” for an empty hand, at the decisive moment. [Illustration: Photograph by Otto Sarony. Collection of Jefferson Winter. BLANCHE BATES AS _THE GIRL_, IN “THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST”] There came a time, however, when even Love could do no more; but at that crisis Fate interposed, in the shape of Public Opinion,--that is to say, the friendship of “the boys,”--and the _Girl_ and her lover were united.