" She laughed
grimly. "He was ver' much drunk ... and then--"
"That Sydney Duck comes in," said Dandy Carter. "He sits down at the
table with 'em. They begins to quarrel over Rose. And the fust I knows
there was a gun went off; the girl yells and the other man vamooses,
with this feller staggerin' after."
"He shot from under the table," a sailor volunteered. "'Twas murder.
Where I come from they'd a-hanged him for't."
"But who was he?" Brannan asked the question in another form. The girl
and Dandy Carter looked at one another, furtively. "I--don't know his
name," the girl said, finally.
"Don't any of you?" Brannan's tone was searching. But it brought no
answer. Several shook their heads. Ensenada Rose shivered. "It's cold. I
go back in," she said, and turned from them. Brannan stopped her with a
sudden gesture. "Wait," he ordered. "Where's the map ... the paper this
man showed you ... of his mine?"
Ensenada Rose's eyes looked into Brannan's, with a note of challenge her
chin went up. "Quien sabe?" she retorted. Brannan watched the slender,
graceful figure vanish through the lighted door. In her trail the
gambler and bartender followed. Presently a burst of music issued from
the groggery; a tap-tap-tap of feet in rhythm to the click of castanets.
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