stock. And when, towards the end of the week, a cartload of pretty
fixtures, mirrors, and furniture arrived at the tienda, there was
a renewed demand at the Emporium for articles not in stock, and the
consequent diverting of custom to Fiddletown. Buckeye found itself face
to face with a hitherto undreamt of and preposterous proposition. It
seemed that the advent of the strange woman, without having yet produced
any appreciable effect upon the men, had already insidiously inveigled
the adult female population into ostentatious extravagance.

At the end of a week the little adobe house was not only rendered
habitable, but was even made picturesque by clean white curtains at
its barred windows, and some bright, half-Moorish coloring of beams and
rafters. Nearly the whole ground floor was given up to the saloon of
the tienda, which consisted of a small counter at one side, containing
bottles and glasses, and another, flanking it, with glass cases,
containing cigars, pipes, and tobacco, while the centre of the room was
given up to four or five small restaurant tables. The staff of Jovita
was no longer limited to Sanchicha, but had been augmented by a little
old man of indefinite antiquity who resembled an Aztec idol, and an
equally old Mexican, who looked not unlike a brown-tinted and veined
tobacco leaf himself, and might have stood for a sign. But the genius
of the place, its omnipresent and all-pervading goddess, was Jovita!
Smiling, joyous, indefatigable in suavity and attention; all-embracing
in her courtesies; frank of speech and eye; quick at repartee and
deftly handling the slang of the day and the locality with a childlike
appreciation and an infantine accent that seemed to redeem it from
vulgarity or unfeminine boldness! Few could resist the volatile
infection of her presence. A smile was the only tribute she exacted,
and good-humor the rule laid down for her guests. If it occasionally
required some mental agility to respond to her banter, a Californian