"Yes. But knowing these men, your opinion would be of value to me." "Well, then, I'd gamble my boots that they're lying. And I can advance no reasons whatever for my belief. But there's your question answered." "As I thought that it would be. I was sure of it before I came here. You make me doubly sure." He, for the moment, was more interested in her than in Mexicali Joe and his gold. "You don't belong up here in the mountains? You're a long way from your stamping-ground, aren't you?" "Of course. I happened to be down in Rocky Bend when the news came and I caught the first stage up." He tried to make her out. She did not look the type of woman who followed in the wake of such news, adventuring. But then you could never tell what a woman was inside by the outer peach-and-cream softness of her, as Babe Deveril very well understood. She appeared to be plunged deep into revery. Perhaps there was something of weariness in the droop of her shoulders; if she had come on the early stage, she might have had a hard day of it altogether.... "Were you able to get a room at the Gallup House?" he asked. "Yes. I was one of the first, you know. As to how long I can keep my room, I can't tell. Mr. Gallup has doubled his prices and is likely to double them again." "He's that sort," conceded Deveril. "He plays a big game and all the time has a shrewd eye for the little bets. By the way, do you feel entirely comfortable there?" Her eyes drifted to a meeting with his. "What do you mean?" "There's as tough a crowd there and spread all over town as I ever saw. Are you alone?" "Yes. Quite." "You don't mean to say that you, a young girl and not overused to hardship, from the look of you, are up here to mix into such a scrimmage as may be pulled off? To match your wits and your grit and your endurance against the kind of men who go hell-raising into a new gold strike?" She tilted back her head against the door-jamb and looked up, straight into his eyes. Thus he saw her chin brought forward prominently. It was delicately turned and joined, softly curving, a full feminine throat; and yet it was a chin which bespoke character and stubbornness. "When men go rushing after gold," she said quietly, "more likely than not they go with empty pockets if not empty stomachs. There is always a chance, in a new mining-camp, for one who has a little money. A chance to stake a miner, going shares; and always, of course, the chance to stake one's own claim." "But you.... What do you know of such things?" "Not much, first-hand, perhaps. But it's in the blood!... You look a very young man, Mr. Deveril, but you and I know that looks are not everything; and it is quite possible that you are old enough to have heard of Olymphe Labelle?"