"A Cathcart or a Riggs?"

A tough, enigmatic saloonkeeper named Pearl Brown upends life in a rough mining town through sudden, decisive actions, from evicting and burning a row of tenements to refitting her hall as a temperance establishment. Her behavior collides with a reform-minded newspaper editor whose public criticisms provoke factional chaos and a personal confrontation. Two veteran townsmen wager over whether her manner echoes one local man or another, turning gossip about her parentage into a running comic subplot. The narrative moves briskly through episodes of rough humor and social uproar while exploring personal mystery, community judgment, and the unpredictable agency of its central woman.