CHAPTER VIII: A GANG OF ENEMIES

The miner waited, leaning against the desk. His eyes had followed the
slender figure moving after the rotund Timmons up the uncarpeted stairs
until it had vanished amid the shadows of the second story. He smiled
quietly in imagination of her first astonished view of the interior of
room eighteen, and recalled to mind a vivid picture of its
adornments--the bare wood walls, the springless bed, the crack-nosed
pitcher standing disconsolate in a blue wash-basin of tin; the little
round mirror in a once-gilt frame with a bullet-hole through its
centre, and the strip of dingy rag-carpet on the floor--all this
suddenly displayed by the yellowish flame of a small hand-lamp left
sitting on the window ledge.

Timmons came down the stairs, and bustled in back of the desk, eager to
ask questions.

"Lady a friend o' yours, Jim?" he asked. "If I'd a knowed she wus
comin' I'd a saved a better room."

"I have never seen her until to-night, Pete. She got off the train,
and Carson asked me to escort her up-town--it was dark, you know. How
did she like the palatial apartment?"

"Well, she didn't say nothin'; just sorter looked around. I reckon
she's a good sport, all right. What do ye suppose she's come yere for?"