LITMIR.BIZ

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he had made—Calhoun Bennett, Bert Taylor, Major Marmaduke Miles, Michael Rowlee, Judge Caldwell, and others. They had been most cordial to him, most kind; they had taken him in without delay.

      "It's the spirit of the West, Nan," he cried, "hospitable, unsuspicious, free, eager to welcome! Oh, this is going to be the place for me; opportunity waits at every corner. They are not tied down by conventions, by the way somebody else has done things—"

      He went on rapidly to detail to her some of the things he had been told—the contemplated public improvements, the levelling of the sand hills, the building of a city out of nothing.

      "Why, Nan, do you realize that only four years ago this very Plaza had only six small buildings around it, that there were only three two-story structures in town, that the population was only about five hundred—there are thirty-five thousand now, that—" he rattled on, detailing his recently acquired statistics. Oh, potent influence of the Western spirit—already, eight hours after his landing on California's shores, Milton Keith was a "booster."

      With an expansion of relief that only a woman could fully appreciate, Nan unpacked and put on a frock that had nothing whatever to do with the sea voyage, and which she had not for some time seen. In ordinary accustomed circumstances she would never have thought of donning so elaborate a toilette for a hotel dining-room, but she was yielding to reaction. In her way she was "celebrating," just as was Keith. Her hair she did low after the fashion of the time, and bound it to her brow by a bandeau of pearls. The gown itself was pale green and filmy. It lent her a flowerlike semblance that was very fresh and lovely.

      "By Jove, Nan, you certainly have recovered from the sea!" cried Keith, and insisted on kissing her.

      "Look how you've mussed me all up!" chided Nan, but without irritation.

      They found the other three waiting for them, and without delay entered the dining-room. This, as indeed all the lower story, was in marked contrast of luxury with the bare pine bedrooms upstairs. Long red velvet curtains, held back by tasselled silken cords, draped the long windows; fluted columns at regular intervals upheld the ceiling; the floor was polished and slippery; the tables shone with white and silver. An obese and tremendous darkey in swallowtail waved a white-gloved hand at them, turned ponderously, and preceded them down the aisle with the pomp of a drum major. His dignity was colossal, awe inspiring, remote. Their progress became a procession, a triumphal procession, such as few of Caesar's generals had ever known. Arrived at the predestined table, he stood one side while menials drew out the chairs. Then he marched tremendously back to the main door, his chin high, his expression haughty, his backbone rigid. This head waiter was the feature of the Bella Union Hotel, just as the glass columns were the feature of the Empire, or the clockwork mechanism of the El Dorado.

      The dinner itself went well. Everybody seemed to be friendly and at ease, but by one of those strange and sudden social transitions it was rather subdued. This was for various reasons. Nan Keith, after her brief reaction, found herself again suffering from the lassitude and fatigue of a long voyage; she needed a night's rest and knew it. Keith himself was a trifle sleepy as an after affect to the earlier drinking. Sherwood was naturally reserved and coolly observing; Mrs. Sherwood was apparently somehow on guard; and Sansome, as always, took his tone from those about him. The wild spirits of the hour before had taken their flight. It was, however, a pleasant dinner—without constraint, as among old friends. After the meal they went to the public parlour, a splendid but rather dismal place. Sherwood almost immediately excused himself. After a short and somewhat awkward interval, Nan decided she would go to bed for her needed rest.

      "You won't think me rude, I know." said she.

      Keith, whose buoyant temper had been sadly divided between a genuine wish to do the proper and dutiful thing by his wife and a great desire to see more of this fascinating city, rose with so evident an alacrity under restraint that Mrs. Sherwood scarcely, concealed a smile. She said her adieux at the same time, and left the room, troubling herself only to the extent of that ancient platitude about "letters to write."

VII

       Table of Contents

      "I think we'll find most of the proper crowd down at the Empire," observed Sansome as the two picked their way across the Plaza. "That is one of the few old-fashioned, respectable gambling places left to us. The town is not what it used to be in a sporting way. It was certainly wide open in the good old days!"

      The streets at night were ill lighted, except where a blaze of illumination poured from the bigger saloons. The interims were dark, and the side streets and alleys stygian. "None too safe, either," Sansome understated the case. Many people were abroad, but Keith noticed that there seemed to be no idlers; every one appeared to be going somewhere in particular. After a short stroll they entered the Empire, which, Sansome explained, was the most stylish and frequented gambling place in town, a sort of evening club for the well-to-do and powerful. Keith looked over a very large room or hall, at the lower end of which an alcove made a sort of raised stage with footlights. Here sat a dozen "nigger minstrels" with banjos strumming, and bawling away at top pressure. An elaborate rosewood bar ran down the whole length at one side—an impressive polished bar, perhaps sixty feet long, with a white-clad, immaculate barkeeper for every ten feet of it. Big mirrors of French plate reflected the whole room, and on the shelf in front of them glittered crystal glasses of all shapes and sizes, arranged in pyramids and cubes. The whole of the main floor was carpeted heavily. Down the centre were stationed two rows of gambling tables, where various games could be played—faro, keeno, roulette, stud poker, dice. Beyond these gambling tables, on the other side of the room from the bar, were small tables, easy chairs of ample proportions, lounges, and a fireplace. Everything was most ornate. The ceilings and walls were ivory white and much gilt. Heavy chandeliers, with the usual glass prisms and globes, revolved slowly or swayed from side to side. Huge oil paintings with shaded top and foot-lights occupied all vacant spaces in the walls. They were "valued" at from ten to thirty thousand dollars apiece, and that fact was advertised. "Leda and the Swan," "The Birth of Venus," "The Rape of the Sabines," "Cupid and Psyche" were some of the classic themes treated as having taken place in a warm climate. "Susannah and the Elders" and "Salome Dancing" gave the Biblical flavour. The "Bath of the Harem" finished the collection. No canvas was of less size than seven by ten feet.

      The floor was filled with people. A haze of blue smoke hung in the air. There was no loud noise except from the minstrel stage at the end. A low hum of talk, occasionally accented, buzzed continuously. Many of the people wandering about, leaning against the bar, or integers of the compact groups around the gambling tables, were dressed in the height of fashion; but, on the other hand, certainly half were in the roughest sort of clothes—floppy old slouch hats, worn flannel shirts, top boots to which dried mud was clinging. These men were as well treated as the others.

      Fascinated, Keith would, have liked to linger, but Sansome threaded his way toward the farther corner. As Keith passed near one of the close groups around a gambling table, it parted momentarily, and he looked into the eyes of the man in charge, cold, passionless, aloof, eyes neither friendly nor unfriendly. And he saw the pale skin; the weary, bored, immobile features; the meticulous neat dress; the long, deft fingers; and caught the withdrawn, deadly, exotic personality of the professional gambler on duty.

      The whole place was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Whether it was primarily a bar, a gambling resort, or a sort of a public club with trimmings, he could not have determined. Many of those present, perhaps a majority, were neither gambling, nor drinking; they seemed not to be adding to the profits of the place in any way, but either wandered about or sat in the easy chairs, smoking, reading papers, or attending to the occasional outbreaks of the minstrels. It was most interesting.

      They joined a group in the far corner. A white-clad negro instantly brought them chairs, and hovered discreetly near. Among those sitting about Keith recognized several he had met in the afternoon; and to several more he was introduced. Of these the one who most instantly impressed him was called Morrell. This was evidently a young Englishman, a being of a type raised quite abundantly in England, but more rarely

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