The guide took them out through the office-lined corridors that led to the front door. There seemed to be a guard at every turning.

    By the time they got out to the main gate, Vangie was feeling highly relieved. It was obviously impossible to crack this place. Now Gabe would have to give up the idea completely.

    Gabe nodded judiciously as they walked out through the gate. "Well," he said, "that shouldn't be too tough."

    He didn't seem to notice the look Vangie gave him.

    The street led directly downhill from the Mint's main gate to the Bay, which spread out before them in all its sunlit glory. They strolled down toward the center of the city, Gabe off in unguessable plans and speculations, Vangie fretting and fuming and wondering just how serious Gabe was about putting his head into this particular noose.

    A block or two from the Mint they passed a policeman and Vangie recognized him as Officer McCorkle, with his red hair sticking out from under his bobby helmet as though it were a wig. He was the one who'd arrested that fellow in the Golden Rule that time, the fellow who'd tried to shoot Ittzy Herz.

    Apparently Officer McCorkle thought he recognized Vangie and Gabe as well. He gave them both a searching glance as they passed him by, and when she looked back at him he had taken an enormous notebook from his hip pocket and was flipping through the pages. He selected one, took a stub of pencil from his shirt pocket, wetted it on his tongue preparatory to taking notes, and glanced again toward Vangie and Gabe.

    Vangie guiltily faced front. Beside her, Gabe walked blissfully along, unaware of everything. But she could practically feel that pencil writing away on the back of her head.

    He's just waiting for us to get in trouble, Vangie thought. It was obvious that McCorkle had his eye on them. Should she say something to Gabe? No, he'd just think she was trying to scare him out of planning this Mint robbery.

    Troubled, oppressed, but for the moment keeping her own counsel, Vangie walked along beside her man.

CHAPTER TWELVE

    Francis' pleasure in the day was about to be spoiled. "I don't understand," he complained, "why you want to go out to that awful place."

    Gabe said, "It's just a nice ride in the country, think of it that way."

    "A ride into disaster, you mean." Francis was sulky because the cancan shows were still forcibly shut down and none of his other potential projects had come through-the dress boutique, for instance, or the tea shoppe.

    Vangie said, "Oh, come on, Francis, it'll be fun. Fresh air and sunshine."

    Feeling betrayed by the girl, Francis said to her, "Why, I thought you didn't approve of all this."

    "I don't," she said. "But I wouldn't pass up a beautiful day in the country. Besides, you don't care about that old mine anyway."

    He did, in fact, he minded terribly, but he only sighed and said, "Oh, very well. If we must, we must."

    They were walking along through a light fog, of a pearly thinness so translucent that it hardly counted as a fog at all in San Franciscan terms. As they strolled down Front Street to Hansen's Livery, the fog rolled in more heavily from the Bay, entirely obscuring the world in white for thirty seconds or so, then whisking itself away like smoke in a magic act, revealing-a corral full of nags for rent.

    Francis, feeling a bit better now that he'd resigned himself to visiting the mine of his undoing, said, "My, that is a stirring sight, isn't it?"

    "I look best on a black horse," Vangie said.

    "Yes, you're right," Francis told her. "That would go with your coloring."

    Gabe said, "I look best in a buggy, so that's what we'll get."

    Pouting, Vangie said, "But I want to ride."

    Gabe said, "Vangie, I've never been on top of a horse in my life and I'm not about to start now."

    Vangie gave him a contemptuous stare. "You are a dude, aren't you?"

    "Horses are for pulling things," Gabe said. "I don't sit on them, and they don't sit on me."

    "Tenderfoot."

    "Better a tender foot," Gabe told her. "We'll take a buggy. Of course, if you want, you can stay here in town."

    Francis, seeing a battle brewing, made an attempt to soothe it. "Oh, really," he said, "sometimes a victoria can be fun. The breeze in one's face, a pleasant ride. Don't you think so, Vangie?"

    Vangie looked doubtful and mutinous. She seemed to be working out the exact phrasing of a statement that Francis was sure he didn't want to hear, so he hurried on, saying, "Come on, dear, we'll see if they have something interesting. Something really ladylike and nice."

    Vangie permitted herself to be led away by Francis, who took her around the side of the corral to where a number of bedraggled buggies and gigs were lined up along a muddy stretch beside a railed fence. Forcing himself to be lighthearted in the teeth of all this depressing naturalism, Francis said, "Well, do you see anything you like?"

    She turned her head slowly and gave him a look.

    Before Francis could decide what to do or say next, the stable hostler came gimping over. A crabbed man of indeterminate age, in filthy clothes, he gave the appearance that his entire body was in a permanent squint. "Ah, my good man," Francis said inaccurately. "We were hoping to rent a victoria for the day."

    "And how about a Myrtle for tonight?" The hostler giggled, wheezed and hugged himself until he noticed Vangie looking at him; then he got surly and just stood there, squinting over his whole body. "Got no victoria," he said, and spat something brown into the mud.

    "What do you have?" Francis asked. Years ago, he'd decided the only way to survive in this life was to pretend that everybody else was also civilized, no matter what they did. Sometimes the pretence was harder to maintain than at other times.

    "What you see right there in front of you," the hostler said, and jabbed a thumb at the line of wagons along the fence.

    Gabe joined them then and pointed to one of the wagons. "What's that?" he said.

    Everybody looked at him. Nobody could figure out what question he was asking. Doubtfully, the hostler said, "It's for rent."

    "I know. What's it called?"

    The hostler squinted more than ever. "You havin' fun with me?"

    Francis said gently, "Gabe, you're such a city person."

    "Yeah, I've noticed that about me."

    "It's called a buckboard."

    "We could all three sit up on front there, couldn't we?"

    "Yes, of course," Francis said. He frowned toward Vangie, wondering if she would accept a buckboard after he'd built her up to anticipate a much more elegant victoria. But her mulish expression hadn't changed at all, either for the better or the worse. "A buckboard," Francis said again, trying to sound enthusiastic. "Why, it might be a lot of fun at that."

    "It'll get us there," Gabe said, and turned to deal with the hostler.

    Once a swaybacked roan with a sty in its off eye had been attached to the buckboard and the squinting hostler had been dealt with in a financial way, Francis, Gabe and Vangie crowded together up onto the seat. Gabe said, "Okay. Who drives?"