Finally, in utter desperation, Walcott married the daughter
of a Mexican gambler, who ran an eating house and a poker joint.
With them we lived from hand to mouth in a wild God-forsaken way
for several years. After a time the woman began to take a strange
fancy to me. Walcott finally noticed it, and grew jealous.
"One night, in a drunken brawl, we quarreled, and I killed him. It
was late at night, and, beside the woman, there were four of us in
the poker room,--the Mexican gambler, a half-breed devil called
Cherubim Pete, Walcott, and myself. When Walcott fell, the half-
breed whipped out his weapon, and fired at me across the table; but
the woman, Nina San Croix, struck his arm, and, instead of killing
me, as he intended, the bullet mortally wounded her father, the
Mexican gambler. I shot the half-breed through the forehead, and
turned round, expecting the woman to attack me. On the contrary,
she pointed to the window, and bade me wait for her on the cross
trail below.
"It was fully three hours later before the woman joined me at the
place indicated. She had a bag of gold dust, a few jewels that
belonged to her father, and a package of papers.
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