The Lone Tree saloon and dance hall was ablaze with lights. Two bar-keepers in white jackets were setting out the bottles over the long, polished counter. There was the clink of glasses, as men stood in rows drinking the amber-colored liquid. "Have another on me," was frequently heard along the counter, as someone felt it was his turn to set up the drinks to the crowd. A brawny miner stepped up to the side of a sheep herder who had been edging in all evening to get free drinks--and squirted a mouthful of tobacco juice in his ear. "If anybody else had done that but you, Bill, I'd be tempted to strike him." "Don't let your friendship for me spoil your notions," the miner said with a contemptuous look. The sheep herder made no reply, as he wiped his ear. The fire that burned in his stomach demanded whiskey, and he would brook any insult to get it. He had reached the level of the sodden, and others passed him by. It was yet early in the night, and crowds were gathering in the rear of the large room, about the roulette wheel, the crap tables and faro layout, back of which the lookout was seated on a raised platform. Stacks of coin in gold and silver were on the tables to tempt the players. At other tables men were seated playing cards and smoking. In an adjoining room, cut with archways, was the dance hall. An orchestra on a platform played rag-time music, while painted women in short dresses to give them a youthful appearance, sat on benches against the wall, or danced with swaggering men to the calls of a brawny bullet-headed floor manager. His bleared eyes and heavy swollen jaw showed the effects of a recent debauch ending in a fist fight. The women urged their partners to drink at the end of every dance. While the men drank whiskey, they gave the bar-keepers a knowing look, and a bottle like the others was set out containing ginger ale which the women drank as whiskey, and were given a check, which they afterwards cashed as their percentage. While the sign on the windows read The Lone Tree Saloon and Dance Hall, the place had earned the sobriquet of the Bucket of Blood, from the many tragedies enacted therein. And this place was run by a woman, Calamity Jane, famous in several mining camps. One fellow analyzed her when he said: "She is a powerful good woman, except she hain't got no moral character." Coyote Jim, faro dealer, sauntered in and took his place at the table. His eyes were a steel blue, the kind that men inured to the mining camps of the early west had learned were dangerous. His face was thin and white, hair of a black blue, like a raven's wing, hung half way to his shoulders. His thin hands handled the pasteboards in the box with a dexterity that marked him an expert. Supple in form, with quick, cat-like motions, he made one think of a tiger.