“Now look here, friend,” he went on a moment later, “you’ve got to do like you said you would.  Of course, I know melons don’t grow up here in the pine mountains, even if they was ripe yet; but you said you was comin’ along to see fair play, and you got to do it.”

Dan Anderson looked at him queerly.  “Wait,” said he; “it’ll be night before long.  Then you go on up to the house, and prospect around a little.  If you get scared, come back, and I’ll—­I’ll take care of you.  I’ll be around here somewhere, so you needn’t be afraid to go right on in alone, you know.  Tell her you know her preserved songs, and liked them so much you just had to come down here.  Tell her about the watermelons.  Tell her—­”

“You’re actin’ a leetle nervous your own self, man,” said Tom Osby, keenly.  “But you watch Papa.  I been married four times, or maybe five, so what’s a woman here or there to me?  What is there to any woman to scare a feller, anyway?”

“I’m damned if I know!” replied Dan Andersen;—­“there isn’t—­of course there isn’t, of course not.  You’re perfectly safe.  Why, just go right on up.  Have your sand along!”

“Sure,” said Tom Osby.  “All right; I’ll just mosey along up the trail after a while.”

And after a while he did depart, alone, leaving Dan Anderson sitting on the wagon tongue.  “You come up after a while, Dan,” he called back.  “If you don’t hear nothing from me, you’d better stroll along up and view the remains.”

Madame Alicia Donatelli paced up and down the long room in the somewhat dismal hotel building which constituted the main edifice of Sky Top.  She was in effect a prisoner.  El Paso seemed like a dream, San Francisco a figment of the brain, and New York a wholly imaginary spot upon some undiscovered planet, lost in the nebulous universe of space.  She trod the uneven floor as some creature caged, on her face that which boded no good to the next comer, whoever he might be.

The next comer was Signer Peruchini, the tenor.  Unhappy Peruchini!  He started back from the ominous swish of the Donatelli gown, the deep cadence of the Donatelli voice, the restless Donatelli walk, now resumed.

“How dare you!” cried the diva.  “How dare you intrude on me?”

“The saints!” cried Signer Peruchini.  “What service is zere here?  I knock, but you do not hear.  Madame, what horror is zis place!”

“Ah, that Blauring!” cried Madame Donatelli, in her rage.  “The beast!  How dare he bring me here—­me!” (she smote her bosom)—­“who have sung in the grand in the best houses of the Continent—­in Italy, Paris, London, St. Petersburg!  I shall not survive this!”

“Perfide!” cried Peruchini, in assent. “Perfide!  R-r-rascal! Cochon!  Pig unspikkab’!”

“But, madame,” he resumed, with gestures and intonations suitable for the scene.  “Behole!  It is I who have lofe you so long.  To lofe—­ah, it is so divine!  How can you riffuse?”