Still Miss Pickett lingered; so Soft Wind, whose forty years of life had been spent in arduous toil that had made her muscles as hard and firm as those of most men, picked Miss Pickett up in her arms, carried her out kicking and screaming and tossed the spinster incontinently over the gate. Sam Singer saw the exit and favored his squaw with the first grunt of approval in many years. Donna, after first ascertaining that Miss Pickett had lit in the sand and was uninjured, leaned over the gate and almost laughed herself into hysterics. That was the last effort made to reform Donna Corblay. In a covert way Miss Pickett and Mrs. Pennycook conspired to publicly disgrace her and, branded as a scarlet woman, drive her out of San Pasqual, if possible. Donna had declared war, and they were prepared to accept the challenge. Borax O'Rourke, with six months' wages coming to him from his chosen occupation of skinning mules up Keeler way, had been sighing for the delights of San Pasqual and an opportunity to spend his money after the fashion of the country. This was not possible in Keeler--at least not on the extravagant scale which obtained regularly in San Pasqual; hence, when he learned quite by chance that Harley P. Hennage was no longer in that thriving hive of desert iniquity, Borax commenced to pine for some society more ameliorating than that of twelve mules driven with a jerk-line. In a word, Mr. O'Rourke decided to quit his job, go down to San Pasqual and enter upon a butterfly existence until his six months' pay should be dissipated. Accordingly Borax O'Rourke descended, via the stage line, on San Pasqual. He heralded his arrival and his intentions by inviting San Pasqual to drink with him, and after visiting each of its many saloons and spending impartially the while, he decided, along toward dusk, that he had partaken of sufficient squirrel whisky to give him an appetite for his dinner, and forthwith shaped his somewhat faltering course for the eating-house. Here he discovered that Donna Corblay was no longer employed at the cashier's counter--which disappointed him. He ate his dinner in silence, and upon his return to the Silver Dollar saloon he was informed, with many a low jest and rude guffaw, the reason for his disappointment. Whereat he laughed himself.