trouble, and a troubled woman can command, to the death, even worse men
than free-and-easy miners. She had a refined, pure face, out of which
two great brown eyes looked so tenderly and anxiously, that these men
forgot themselves at once. She seemed young, not more than twenty-three
or four; she was slightly built, and dressed in a suit of plain black.

"Mr. Buffle," said she, "I was going through by stage to San Francisco,
when I overheard the driver say to a man seated by him that you knew
more miners than any man in California--that you had been through the
whole mining country."

"Well, mum," said Buffle, with a delighted but sheepish look, which
would have become a missionary complimented on the number of converts he
had made, "I _hev_ been around a good deal, that's a fact. I reckon I've
staked a claim purty much ev'rywhar in the diggins."

"So I inferred from what the driver said," she replied, "and I came down
here to ask you a question."

Here she looked uneasily at the other players. The man who stole the ace
translated it at once, and said:

"We'll git out ef yer say so, mum; but yer needn't be afraid to say
ennything before us. We know a lady when we see her, an' mebbe some on
us ken give yer a lift; if we can't, I've only got to say thet ef yer
let out enny secrets, grizzlies couldn't tear 'em out uv enny man in
this crowd. Hey, fellers?"

"You bet," was the firm response of the remaining two, and Buffle
quickly passed a demijohn, to the ace-thief, as a sign of forgiveness