for money."

"Was it really murder?"

"Judge for yourself. My man came down for supplies, and they got him
drunk--he was a drinking man--then they stabbed him. They said a Chinaman
did it in a brawl, but Willis Marsh was to blame. They brought the poor
fellow here, and laid him on my steps, as if I had been the cause of it.
Oh, it was horrible, horrible!" Her eyes suddenly dimmed over and her
white hands clenched.

"And you still stuck to your post?" said Emerson, curiously.

"Certainly! This adventure means a great deal to me, and, besides, _I
will not be beaten_"--the stem of the glass with which she had been
toying snapped suddenly--"at anything."

She appeared, all in a breath, to have become prematurely hard and
worldly, after the fashion of those who have subsisted by their wits. To
Emerson she seemed to have grown at least ten years older. Yet it was
unbelievable that this slip of a woman should be possessed of the
determination, the courage, and the administrative ability to conduct so
desperate an enterprise. He could understand the feminine rashness that
might have led her to embark upon it in the first place, but to continue
in the face of such opposition--why, that was a man's work and required a
man's powers, and yet she was utterly unmasculine. Indeed, it seemed to
him that he had never met a more womanly woman. Everything about her was
distinctly feminine.

"Fortunately, the fishing season is short," she added, while a pucker of