“You lay low till I get back.”

“You’re not going back on me?” Barker still studied him.

“Going back on you?” Westcott laughed, shortly.

“Lord!” he exclaimed, “Do you think I didn’t have enough of that?”

He threw some lumps of coal into the little stove. “I’ll have to douse the glim,” he explained, “since I’ll be out around town, and someone might wonder who’s here. You can lie down there.”

11He waved a hand toward the couch and Barker nodded.

11

“I’m pegged out,” he said, wearily. “I’ll just sit here by the fire. Lord! How long is it since I’ve been warm?”

He drew his chair nearer and bent to the glow. Westcott lowered the light and blew out the flame.

“I’ll lock the door on the outside,” he said, “And don’t you worry, Barker: I’ll take care of you. Just trust me.”

“I guess I’ve got to trust you,” was the helpless reply, “I can’t do anything else.” And Westcott stepped out into the night, locking the door behind him.

Once outside he walked along the plaza to the head of the gulch and stood looking down upon the town. The varied sounds of a mining settlement at night came plainly to his ears. A new dancer from over the border was making her first appearance at Garvanza’s that evening, and the Mexicans were gathered in force. There was a crowd of miners in the Red Light Saloon. He could hear their voices.

“How I hate it all,” he muttered. “I wish I was out of it!”

The post-office was on Lower Broadway in the Company’s store, where a single light burned, dimly. Farther down was the school-house, where 12the school-teacher labored by day, with the half-dozen white children of the town, and twice as many young Papegoes. Behind the gulch, climbing heavenward, verdureless, copper-ribbed, austere, lay the mountain, where the mines were.

12

Westcott had been in Blue Gulch for more than a year. He had drifted out of Phoenix after the Barker affair, glad to get away, where he was sure no one knew of the matter.

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