Daintiness, however, seemed out of place. There was about the young woman an absence of feminine coquetry that set her apart from most vaudeville performers. Sometimes she forced a smile, and made a little bow to the house, but conciliatory measures were plainly foreign to this woman’s temperament. She was there to do certain things; one would be safe to wager that she would do them well. And she did. She was a marvelous shot, cool, and steady; and the men in her audience were genuinely enthusiastic. A good many of them could appreciate straight and clever shooting when they saw it. She shot bull’s-eyes, tossed glass balls, shot apples on the head of her meek partner, the smiling man of the photograph; she shot over her shoulder, looking in a mirror; she shot, after sighting carefully, with her eyes blindfolded; she shot with guns of every size and caliber. In everything she did was apparent the same crisp, grim efficiency. She did not do her work at all gayly, nor as if she enjoyed it. There was something resentful about her whole personality. Doubtless she grudged the entertainment she gave and would have preferred to earn her salary, if possible, by making herself unpleasant to people, instead of diverting them! Barrison gave many glances to the man who so patiently and self-effacingly assisted her. He was, in spite of the professional smile, not a happy-looking man. There were moments when, for all his creases of flesh, he looked positively haggard, and his eyes were very tired. He was a man who for some reason lived under a shadow or a burden of some sort; and—this belief came suddenly to Barrison—she herself suffered from the same handicap. These two people were the victims either of a heavy trouble, a grievous disappointment, or a gnawing wrong. You could see the pinches and rakings of suffering in both faces. The climax of Rita’s act was now pending. The partner came down to the footlights, and explained that “The Daredevil, whose life had been one hourly challenge to such dangers as lesser mortals hold in justifiable dread,” would now show the ladies and gentlemen how little she cared for common risks or common caution. It appeared that she wished any one who liked to come and examine the pistols she was going to use. It was necessary for the audience to understand that they were all loaded. Did any one care to examine them? Yes; to Teddy Lucas’ surprise, Barrison did. He leaned over the side of the box, and had the satisfaction not only of noting that they were all loaded, six chambers each, but that each one of the three that she intended to use was marked in precisely the same way as the one which was now locked up in his safe at home. “I thought she did the stunt with four,” said Ted, arching his eyebrows. “She was advertised to.”