"She's an awful nice girl, jus' the same," he repeated with head-nodding
emphasis. And then, feeling no doubt that he had done his chivalrous
duty, he tossed off his liquor, stretched his thick arms high over his
head, squared his shoulders comfortably in his blue flannel shirt and
grinned in wide good humour. "This here campoody of yours ain't a
terrible bad place to be right bow, Poke, old scout. Not a bad place
a-tall."

"You said twice, she was nice," put in old man Adams, his bleary, red
rimmed ferret eyes gimleting at the stage driver. "But you ain't said
who she was? Now..."

Hap Smith stared at him and chuckled.

"Ain't that jus' like Adams for you?" he wanted to know. "Who is she, he
says! An' here I been ridin' alongside her all day an' never once does
it pop into my head to ask whether she minds the name of Daisy or Sweet
Marie!"

"Name's Winifred Waverly," chirped up the old man. "But a name don't
mean much; not in this end of the world least ways. But us boys finds it
kind of interestin' how she hangs out to Dead Man's Alley. That bein'
kind of strange an' ..."

"Poh!" snorted Hap Smith disdainfully. "Her hang out in that little town
of Hill's Corners? Seein' as she ain't ever been there, havin' tol' me
so on the stage less'n two hours ago, what's the sense of sayin' a fool
thing like that? She ain't the kind as dwells in the likes of that nest
of polecats an' sidewinders. Poh!"