Brown kept shouting:  “Ship-shape, gents, and reg’lar; that’s the word.  Place your vote and then you drinks....  Gord bless yer merry hearts.”

Thus he harangued them into order and coaxed many a Russian, Spanish, English and American coin across his bar.  Suddenly he looked into the eyes of Aleck McTurpin.

“Give me a brandy sling,” the gambler ordered.  He was in a rough mood, which ensues from heavy and continued drinking.

“Have ye voted, Aleck?” Brown inquired.

“I vote when I please,” McTurpin answered sullenly, “and I drink when it suits me.”  He took from an inner pocket of his coat a derringer with silver mountings, laid it meaningly upon the bar.  “I ordered a brandy sling.”

Brown paled, but his eye did not waver.  Almost casually, he spoke.  “Stop your jokin’, Aleck.  Rules is rules.”

McTurpin’s fingers closed about the pistol.  His eyes were venomous.

Then Benito Windham entered.  Just inside the door he paused, uncertainly.  “I have come to vote for Senor Bartlett as Alcalde,” he declared.

A laugh greeted him.  “You should not announce your choice,” said Inspector Ward severely.  “The ballot is supposedly secret.”

McTurpin turned, his quarrel with Brown instantly forgotten.  “Throw the little greaser out,” he spoke with slow distinctness.  “This is a white man’s show.”

There was a startled silence.  “He’s drunk,” Brown told them soothingly.  “Aleck’s drunk.  Don’t listen to him.”

“Drunk or not, I back my words.”  He waved the weapon threateningly.  “Sit down there,” he ordered Windham.  “If you want to vote you’ll vote for a gentleman.  Write Bob Ridley’s name on your ballot, or, by God!  I’ll fix you.”  Benito, as if hypnotized, took a seat at the table and dipped his quill in the ink.  The others stirred uneasily, but made no move.  There was a moment of foreboding silence.  Then a hearty voice said from the door:  “What’s the matter, gentlemen?”

No one answered.  McTurpin, the pistol in his hand, still stood above Benito.  The latter’s fingers held the quill suspended.  A drop of ink fell on the ballot slip unnoted.  Brannan, with a puzzled frown, came forward, laid a hand upon the gambler’s shoulder.

“What’s the matter here?” he asked more sharply.

McTurpin turned upon him fiercely.  “Go to hell!” he cried.  “I’m running this.”

Brannan’s voice was quiet.  “Put the pistol down!” he ordered.  Deliberately McTurpin raised his weapon.  “Damn you—­” But he got no farther.  Brannan’s fist struck fairly on the chin.  One could hear the impact of it like a hammer blow.  There was a shot, a bullet spent against the rafters overhead.  McTurpin sprawling on the sawdust-covered floor.

* * * * *

On Windham rancho the Senora Windham waited with a faith that knew no end for the coming of her husband.  There had been vague reports from vaguer sources that he had been captured by the northern savages.  Inez and Benito were forever at her side—­save when the boy rode into town to cull news from arriving sailors.  The Spanish rancheros had all withdrawn to the seclusion of their holdings and were on the verge of war against the new authorities of Yerba Buena.