known as Merton Gill in the little hamlet of Simsbury, Illinois,
where for a time, ere yet he was called to screen triumphs, he
served as a humble clerk in the so-called emporium of Amos G.
Gashwiler--Everything For The Home. Our Prices Always Right.

Merton Gill--so for a little time he must still be known--moodily
seized the late Estelle St. Clair under his arm and "withdrew from
the dingy back storeroom. Down between the counters of the emporium
he went with his fair burden and left her outside its portals,
staring from her very definitely lashed eyes across the slumbering
street at the Simsbury post office. She was tastefully arrayed in
one of those new checked gingham house frocks so heatedly mentioned
a moment since by her lawful owner, and across her chest Merton Gill
now imposed, with no tenderness of manner, the appealing legend,
"Our Latest for Milady; only $6.98." He returned for Snake le
Vasquez. That outlaw's face, even out of the picture, was evil. He
had been picked for the part because of this face--plump, pinkly
tinted cheeks, lustrous, curling hair of some repellent composition,
eyes with a hard glitter, each lash distinct in blue-black lines,
and a small, tip-curled black mustache that lent the whole an
offensive smirk. Garbed now in a raincoat, he, too, was posed before
the emporium front, labelled "Rainproof or You Get Back Your Money."
So frankly evil was his mien that Merton Gill, pausing to regard
him, suffered a brief relapse into artistry.

"You fiend!" he muttered, and contemptuously smote the cynical face
with an open hand.

Snake le Vasquez remained indifferent to the affront, smirking
insufferably across the slumbering street at the wooden Indian