Before a card was dealt, there was the sound of feet on the floor, and all looked up to see John Pierson and Dopey Mack before them. Both had grown full beards and were dressed in garments better adapted for “roughing it” in the mountains than for social reunions. The players turned diligently to their game, as etiquette on the range does not allow of too much interest in one’s neighbor’s affairs. Pierson said to Dopey, in a low voice: “If my recollection serves me well, Dopey, I think this is the place and about as nearly out of the world as a place ever gets to.” “Well, dere’s one t’ing, Mister. I’m dead glad to find anyt’ing wid a roof on it, for I’m dat sick and sore climbing over rocks dat I feels like I been up ag’inst Bob Fitz in de twentieth round, and dat’s no dream. It’s here in every bone, an’ it’s here, all right.” “Better than to be hitting the pipe in New York and have the life burned out of you. We were lucky to have gotten away as we did with the girl, and out here we’re as safe as if we were locked up in a tomb.” [Illustration: WESTERN PASTIME - “HITTING THE PIPE”] “Lucky she went off her base!” “Yes, that made it easy to tell that she is my poor, demented daughter, out here by my physician’s orders.” “An’ did you ever see anybody take such a likin’ to anyone as de Empress has to de gal? I never did.” “You mean Muriel? No; devil take the luck that she should have met us that night. Curse her interference! Had it not been for her, I’d have killed the other one long ago, but it will be different out here. I’ll get rid of her, all right. She is no use to me now, since she went daffy when she saw me kill that brute. Let me see if I am right. If I am, I will bring Muriel and her here.” Saying these words, Pierson went to the bar and asked Snake if he could obtain accommodations for his wife and demented daughter, himself and a friend. After some conversation, to which all four players lent a listening ear, all the keener because they had not heard the earlier talk between the two men, Snakes offered two rooms on the floor above, one of them over the bar-room and the other over the dining-room. Snakes made the remark that the ladies might find the place noisy, especially for the one who was demented, but John reassured him by saying that so long as she saw no one she would be all right. Then Pierson asked Snakes if he did not remember him, saying that he was sure that he had known Duffy several years ago in Cheyenne. Duffy had almost forgotten his own name, so long had he been called Snakes, and so was not to blame if he did not recognize the name of Blakely. “Yes,” continued Pierson, “it is a sad business that brings me here. I was married then, but my wife was in the East, and I have this daughter, my only child. She became insane from overstudy. The doctors thought that the high altitude and mountain air would restore her. The poor child needs a rest.”