No, she had travelled that path alone at night before, again and again, returning from her work.

She shrank, womanlike, from the sights and sounds, but was conscious of no personal fear.

What she dreaded beyond expression was that long, black stretch of narrow, desolate alley-way leading down toward the creek bridge and the old fort beyond.

She had been over that path once in broad daylight, and it made her shudder to think she must now feel her way there alone through the dark.

The growing fear of it got upon her nerves as she stood hesitating; then, almost angry with herself, she advanced swiftly down toward the distant glowing lights of the Gayety.
It was just beyond there that the alley turned off toward the foothills, a mere thread of a path wandering amid a maze of unlighted tents and disreputable shacks; she remembered this, and the single rotten strip of plank which answered for a sidewalk.
There was an unusually boisterous, quarrelsome crowd congregated in front of the Poodle-Dog, and she turned aside into the middle of the street in order to get past undisturbed.