"By being a father to his lonely child and watching over her. There's two girls there. You can keep an eye on them both. I'll trap this old scoundrel here. You've got to leave this town. He might suspect YOU when I start MY machinery. "I'll plow deep here. I'll meet you in New York. Now, I want you to take to-morrow's train. I'll run your stock account, Colonel Henry," Woods remarks, with a laugh. The next day, Peyton speeds away on his errand after receiving the old miner's last orders. His whispered adieu was: "I'm going to stand by my dead pardner's kid, for he thought of me at the last." CHAPTER XVII. WEAVING SPIDERS.--A COWARD BLOW.--MARIE BRARD'S DOOM. Peyton's good-bye rings in Woods' ears as the train leaves. The boxes and parcels forced on the Confederate veteran, are tokens of his affection. The cognac and cigars are of his own selection. Joe's taste in creature comforts is excellent, and better than his grammar. On the ferry, Joe surveys San Francisco complacently from the steamer. "I've got those documents in the vaults. I'll have Peyton's evidence. I rather fancy Captain Lee's biography will interest that dame in Paris. I will prospect my friend Hardin's surroundings. He must have some devil to do his dirty work. I will do a bit of 'coyote work' myself. It's a case of dog eat dog, here." Joseph classes all underhand business as "coyote work." He appreciates the neatness with which that furtive Western beast has taken his boots, soap, his breakfast and camp treasures under his nose. Invincible, invisible, is the coyote. "By Heavens! I'll make that old wolf Hardin jump yet!" Joseph swears a pardonable oath. After writing several telling letters to the Padre and Vimont, he feels like a little stroll. He ordered Vimont to guard Louise Moreau at any cost. "No funny business," he mutters. "If she's the girl, that scoundrel might try to remove her from this world," thinks Joseph. "As for the other girl, he's got a tiger cat to fight in the 'de Santos.'" Colonel Woods beams in upon the clerks of Judge Hardin. That magnate is absent. The senatorial contest is presaged by much wire-pulling. "I don't see the young man who used to run this shebang," carelessly remarks the Croesus. "Mr. Jaggers is not here any longer," smartly replies his pert successor, to whom the fall of Jaggers was a veritable bonanza. "What's the matter with him?" says Woods. "I wanted him to do a job of copying for me." The incumbent airily indicates the pantomime of conveying the too frequent Bourbon to his lips. "Oh, I see! The old thing," calmly says Woods. "Fired out for drinking." The youth nods. "He is around Montgomery Street. You 'most always will catch him around the 'old corner' saloon." Joseph Woods is familiar with that resort of bibulous lawyers. He wanders out aimlessly.