Since she did not reply, he went on vindictively:

"I've come to hate the sight of him—his damned insolence. Every time I see him going into his shack over there," he nodded towards the diagonal corner, "I could burn it."

"It's funny—his building it."

"To save hotel bills when he comes to town. Yes," ironically, "I can see him lending me money." Mrs. Toomey sat up and cried excitedly:

"Jap, let's sell something! There's that silver punch bowl that your Uncle Jasper gave us for a wedding present, and Aunt Sarah Page's silver teapot—Mrs. Sudds admires it tremendously."

Toomey's brow cleared instantly.

"We can do that—I'll raffle it—the punch bowl—and get a hundred and fifty out of it easily." He discussed the details enthusiastically, finally blowing out the light and going to sleep as contentedly as though it already had been accomplished.

But in the darkness Mrs. Toomey cried quietly. Selling tickets for a raffle which was for their personal benefit seemed a kind of genteel begging. She wondered that Jap did not feel as she did about it. And what would Mrs. Pantin think? What Mrs. Abram Pantin thought had come to mean a great deal to Mrs. Toomey.

The wind had risen to a gale and she thought nervously of fringed napkins and pillow slips—the wind always gave her the "blues" anyway, and now it reminded her of winter, which was close, with its bitter cold—of snow driven across trackless wastes, of gaunt predatory animals, of cattle and horses starving in draws and gulches, and all the other things which winter meant in that barren country. She slept after a time, to find the next morning that the wind still howled and the fringe on her laundry was all she had pictured.

Toomey set forth gaily immediately after breakfast with the punch bowl wrapped in a newspaper, and Mrs. Toomey nerved herself to negotiate for the sale of the teapot to Mrs. Sudds, in the event of his being unsuccessful.

She watched for his return eagerly, but it was two o'clock before she saw him coming, leaning against the wind and clasping the punch bowl to his bosom. Her heart sank, for his face told her the result without asking.

Toomey set Uncle Jasper's wedding gift upon the dining room table with disrespectful violence.

"You must be crazy to think I could sell that in Prouty! You should have known better!"

"Didn't anybody want it, Jap?" Mrs. Toomey asked timidly.

"Want it?" angrily. "'Tinhorn' thought it was some kind of a tony cuspidor, and a round-up cook offered me a dollar and a half for it to set bread sponge in."

"Never mind," soothingly, "I'm sure Mrs. Sudds will take the teapot."

"We can't live all winter on a teapot," he answered gloomily.

"But you're sure to get into something pretty quick now."

"When I land, I'll land big—I'll land with both feet," he responded more cheerfully.

"Of course, you will—I never doubt it." Mrs. Toomey endeavored to make her tone convincing. "Let's have tea in the heirloom before we part with it," she suggested brightly. "It's never been used that I can remember."

"It's ugly enough to be valuable," Toomey observed, eyeing the teapot as she took it from the top of the bookcase.

"Solid, nearly, and came over in the Mayflower," Mrs. Toomey replied proudly. "We'll have tea and toast and codfish."

"The information is superfluous." Toomey sniffed the air and made a wry face. "I'd as soon eat billposter's paste as codfish."

"To-night we'll have steak—thick, like that—" Mrs. Toomey measured with her thumb and finger as she went into the kitchen.

Toomey eyed the codfish darkly when his wife placed it on the table.

"Sit down, Jap," she urged. "The tea will be steeped in just a second. Don't wait—" A scream completed the sentence.

Toomey overturned his chair as he rushed to the kitchen. He arrived in time to see the lid of the priceless heirloom disappearing in a puddle of pewter. It seemed to the Toomeys that the Fates had singled them out as special objects for their malevolence.

The wind continued to blow as though it meant never to stop. It was a wind of which the people of the East who speak awesomely of their own "gales" and "tempest" wot not.

This wind which had kept Prouty indoors for close to a week came out of a cloudless sky, save for a few innocent looking streaks on the western horizon. It had blown away everything that would move. All the loose papers had sailed through the air to an unknown destination—Nebraska, perhaps—while an endless procession of tumble weed had rolled in the same direction from an apparently inexhaustible supply in the west.

Housewives who had watched their pile of tin cans move on to the next lot found their satisfaction short-lived, for as quickly they acquired the rubbish that belonged to their neighbor on the other side. Shingles flew off and chimney bricks, and ends of corrugated iron roofing slapped and banged as though frantic to be loose. Houses shivered on their foundations, and lesser buildings lay on their sides. Clouds of dust obscured the sun at intervals, and the sharp-edged gravel driven before the gale cut like tiny knives.

Any daring chicken that ventured from its coop slid away as if it were on skates. Pitchforks were useless, and those who had horses to feed carried the hay in sacks. The caged inhabitants stood at their windows and made caustic comments upon the legs and general contour of such unfortunates as necessity took out, while those pedestrians who would converse, upon catching sight of each other made a dive for the nearest telephone pole. There, clinging by an arm like a shipwrecked sailor to a mast, they ventured to opine that it must be "getting ready for something." It seemed as though the earth would soon be denuded of its soil, leaving the rocks exposed like a skeleton stripped of its flesh. Yet, day after day, it blew without respite, and the effect of it upon different temperaments was as varied as that of drink.

No one could seem to remember that the wind had not always blown, or realize that it would sometime stop. No character was strong enough to maintain a perfect equilibrium after three days of it. Logic or philosophy made no more impression upon the mental state than water slipping over a rock. It set the nerves on edge. Irritation, restlessness and discontent were as uncontrollable as great fear. Two wildcats tied together were not more incompatible than husbands and wives, who under normal conditions lived together happily. Doting mothers became shrews; fond fathers, brutes, lambasting their offspring on the smallest pretext; while seven was too conservative an estimate to place upon the devils of which the children who turned the house into Bedlam seemed to be possessed.

Optimists grew green with melancholia, pessimists considered suicide as an escape from the futility of life, neighbors resurrected buried hatchets. Friends found fault with friends. Enemies vowed to kill each other as soon as the wind let up.

If the combination of wind and altitude had this effect upon phlegmatic temperaments, something of Mrs. Toomey's state may be surmised. With nerves already overwrought this prolonged windstorm put her in a condition in which, as she declared hysterically to her husband, she was "ready to fly."

Lying on his back on the one-time handsome sofa, where he spent many of his waking hours, Toomey responded, grimly:

"I'm getting so light on that breakfast-food diet that we'll both fly if I don't make a 'touch' pretty quick. I'm 'most afraid to go out in a high wind without running a little shot in the bottoms of my trousers."

Mrs. Toomey, who was standing at the dining room table laying a section of a newspaper pattern upon a piece of serge, felt an uncontrollable desire to weep. Furthermore, the conviction seized her that, turn and twist the pattern as she might, she was not going to have material enough unless she pieced.

Her lids turned pink and her eyes filled up.

"Isn't it awful, Jap, to think of us being like this?"

"You make me think of a rabbit when you sniffle like that. Can't you cry without wiggling your nose?"

Mrs. Toomey's quavering voice rose to the upper register:

"Do you suppose I care how I look when I feel like this?"

"How do you think I feel," ferociously, "with my stomach slumping in so I can hardly straighten up?" He raised a long arm and shook a fist as though in defiance of the Fate that had brought him to this. "I'd sell my soul for a ham! I'm going to Scales and put up a talk."

Toomey found his hat and coat. "Don't cut your throat with the scissors while I'm gone, Little Sunbeam, and I'll be back with food pretty quick—unless I blow off."

He spoke with such confidence that Mrs. Toomey looked at him hopefully. When he opened the door the furious gust that shook the house and darkened the room with a cloud of dust seemed to suck him into a vortex. Mrs. Toomey watched him round the corner with a sense of relief. Now that she was alone she could cry comfortably and look as ugly as she liked, so the tears flowed copiously as she stood at the table puzzling over the pattern and cloth. They flowed afresh when she proved beyond the question of a doubt that she would have to piece the under-arm sleeve. Simultaneously she wondered if she could do it so skilfully that Mrs. Abram Pantin would not see the piece. Then she frowned in vexation at the realization that it was becoming second nature to wonder what Prissy Pantin would think. Was it possible that there had been a time when she had debated as to whether she wanted to know Mrs. Abram Pantin at all?

When she had married Jap she had thought she was done forever with the miserable poverty and hateful economies that are the lot of the family of a small-town minister; that after years of suppression of opinions and tastes in order not to evoke criticism or give offense, she at last was in a position to assert herself.

And now after a taste of freedom, of power and opulence, here she was back in practically the same position and rapidly developing the same mental attitude towards those more affluent and, therefore, more socially important than herself. Mrs. Toomey's thoughts were much the color of the serge into which she slashed.

Finally, after a glance at the clock, she walked to the window to look for her husband. He was not in sight. As she lingered her glance fell on Mormon Joe's tar-paper shack that set in the middle of the lot on the diagonal corner from their house, and she told herself bitterly that even that drunken renegade, that social pariah, had enough to eat.

Her face brightened as Toomey turned the corner and promptly lengthened when she saw that he was empty-handed and walking with the exaggerated swagger which she was coming to recognize as a sign of failure.

A glimpse of his face as he came in, banged the door, and flung off his hat and coat made her hesitate to speak.

"Well?" he glared at her. "Why don't you say something?"

"What is there to say, Jap?" meekly. "I see he refused you."

"Refused me? He insulted me!"

Mrs. Toomey looked hurt.

"What did he say, Jap?"

"He offered me fifteen dollars a week to clerk."

Toomey resented fiercely the pleased and hopeful expression on his wife's face, and added:

"I suppose you'd like to see me cutting calico and fishing salt pork out of the brine?"

She ventured timidly:

"I thought you might take it until something worth while turned up."

"Maybe," he sneered, "I could get a job swamping in 'Tinhorn's' place—washing fly specks off the windows and sweeping out."

"Of course, you're right, Jap," conciliatingly, but she sighed unconsciously as she went back to her work.

Toomey paced the floor for a time, then sank into his usual place on the sofa. Mrs. Toomey permitted herself to observe sarcastically:

"It's a wonder to me you don't get bed sores—the amount of time you spend on the flat of your back."

"What do you mean by that?" suspiciously. "Do you mean I'm lazy because I didn't take that job?"

Since she made no denial, conversation ceased, and the silence was broken only by the sound of her scissors upon the table and the howling of the gale.

He smoked cigarette after cigarette in gloomy thought, finally getting up and going to a closet off the kitchen.

"What are you looking for, Jap?" she called as she heard him rummaging.

He did not reply, but evidently found what he sought for he came out presently carrying a shotgun.

"Are you going to try and raffle that?"

Still he did not deign to answer, but preserved his injured air, and getting once more into his hat and coat started off with the martyred manner of a man who has been driven from home.

Mrs. Toomey finally threw down her scissors with a gesture of despair. She was too nervous to do any more. The wind, her anxious thoughts, the exacting task of cutting a suit from an inadequate amount of cloth, was a combination that proved to be too much. She glanced at the clock on the bookcase—only three o'clock! Actually there seemed forty-eight hours in days like this. She stood uncertainly for a moment, then determination settled on her tense worried face. Why put it off any longer? It must be done sooner or later—she was sure of that. Besides, nothing ever was as hard as one anticipates. This was a cheering thought, and the lines in Mrs. Toomey's forehead smoothed out as she stood before the mirror buttoning her coat and tying a veil over her head.

It took no small amount of physical courage for a person of Mrs. Toomey's frailty to face such a gale. But with her thin lips in a determined line and her gaze straight ahead, she managed, by tacking judiciously and stopping at intervals to clasp a telephone pole while she recovered her breath, to reach the iron fence imported from Omaha which gave such a look of exclusiveness to the Pantins' residence.

Mr. Pantin thought he heard the gate slam and peered out through the dead wild-cucumber vines which framed the bow window to see Mrs. Toomey coming up the only cement walk in Prouty. He immediately thrust his stockinged feet back in his comfortable Romeos preparatory to opening the door, but before he got up he stooped and looked again, searchingly. Mr. Pantin was endowed with a gift that was like a sixth sense, which enabled him to detect a borrower as far as his excellent eyesight could see one. This intuition, combined with experience, had been developed to the point of uncanniness. No borrower, however adroit, could hope to conceal from Mr. Pantin for a single instant the real purpose of his call by irrelevant talk and solicitous inquiries about his health. In the present instance it did not require great acumen to guess that something urgent had brought Mrs. Toomey out on a day like this, nor any particular keenness to detect the signs of agitation which Mr. Pantin noted in his swift glance. She was coming to borrow—he was as sure of that as though she already had asked, and if any further confirmation were needed, her unnatural gayety when he admitted her and the shortness of her breath finished that.

It availed Mrs. Toomey nothing to tell herself that Mrs. Pantin was her best friend, and that what she was asking was merely a matter of business—the sort of thing that Mr. Pantin was doing every day. Her heart beat ridiculously and she was rather shocked to hear herself laughing shrilly at Mr. Pantin's banal inquiry as to whether she had not "nearly blown off." He added in some haste:

"Priscilla's in the kitchen."

Mrs. Pantin looked up in surprise at her caller's entrance.

"How perfectly sweet of you to come out a day like this!" she chirped. "You'll excuse me if I go on getting dinner? We only have two meals a day when we don't exercise. This wind—isn't it dreadful? I haven't been out of the house for a week."

She placed two rolls in the warming oven and broke three eggs into a bowl.

"Abram and I are so fond of omelette," she said, as the egg-beater whirred. "Tell me," she beamed brightly upon Mrs. Toomey, "what have you been doing with yourself?"

"Priscilla—Prissy—" Mrs. Toomey caught her breath—"I've been miserable—and that's the truth!"

"Why, my dear!" The egg-beater stopped. "Aren't you well? No wonder—I'm as nervous as a witch myself." The egg-beater whirred again encouragingly. "You must use your will power—you mustn't allow yourself to be affected by these external things."

"It's not the wind." Mrs. Toomey's eyes were swimming now. "I'm worried half to death."

Mrs. Pantin had not lived twelve years with Abram in vain. A look of suspicion crossed her face, and there was a little less solicitude in her voice as she inquired:

"Is it anything in particular? Bad news from home?"

"It's money!" Mrs. Toomey blurted out. "We're dreadfully hard up. I came to see if we could get a loan."

The egg-beater went on, but the milk of human kindness which, presumably, flowed in Mrs. Pantin's breast stopped—congealed—froze up tight. Her blue eyes, whose vividness was accentuated as usual by the robin's egg blue dress she wore, had the warm genial glow radiating from a polar berg. It was, however, only a moment before she recovered herself and was able to say with sweet earnestness:

"I haven't anything to do with that, my dear. You'll have to see Mr. Pantin."

Mrs. Toomey clasped her fingers tightly together and stammered:

"If—if you would speak to him first—I—I thought perhaps—"

Mrs. Pantin's set society smile was on her small mouth, but the finality of the laws of the Medes and the Persians was in her tone as she replied:

"I never think of interfering with my husband's business or making suggestions. As fond as I am of you, Delia, you'll have to ask him yourself."

Mrs. Toomey had the feeling that they never would be quite on the same footing again. She knew it from the way in which Mrs. Pantin's eyes travelled from the unbecoming brown veil on her head to her warm but antiquated coat, stopping at her shabby shoes which, instinctively, she drew beneath the hem of her skirt.

To be shabby from carelessness was one thing—to be so from necessity was another, clearly was in Mrs. Pantin's mind. She had known, of course, of the collapse of their cattle-raising enterprise, but she had not dreamed they were in such a bad way as this. She hoped she was not the sort of person who would let it make any difference in her warm friendship for Delia Toomey; nevertheless, Mrs. Toomey detected the subtle note of patronage in her voice when she said:

"Abram is alone in the living room—you might speak to him."

"I think I will." Mrs. Toomey endeavored to repair the mistake she felt she had made by speaking in a tone which implied that a loan was of no great moment after all, but she walked out with the feeling that she used to have in the presence of the more opulent members of her father's congregation when the flour barrel was low.

Mrs. Toomey was not too agitated to note how immaculate and dainty the dining room table looked with its fine linen and cut glass. There were six dices of apple with a nut on top on the handsome salad plates, and the crystal dessert dishes each held three prunes swimming in their rich juice.

The living-room, too, reflected Mrs. Pantin's taste. A framed motto extolling the virtues of friendship hung over the mantel and the "Blind Girl of Pompeii" groped her way down the staircase on the neutral-tinted wall. A bookcase filled with sets of the world's best literature occupied a corner of the room, while ooze leather copies of Henry Van Dyke gave an unmistakable look of culture to the mission table in the center of the room. A handsome leather davenport with a neat row of sofa pillows along the back, which were of Mrs. Pantin's own handiwork, suggested luxurious ease. But the chief attraction of the room was the brick fireplace with its spotless tiled hearth. One of Mr. Pantin's diversions was sitting before the glowing coals, whisk and shovel in hand, waiting for an ash to drop.

Seeing Mrs. Toomey, Mr. Pantin again hastily thrust his toes into his slippers—partly because he was cognizant of the fact that no real gentleman will receive a lady in his stocking feet, and partly to conceal the neat but large darn on the toe of one sock. He was courteous amiability itself, and Mrs. Toomey's hopes shot up.

"I came to have a little talk."

"Yes?"

Mr. Pantin's smile deceived her and she plunged on with confidence:

"I—we would like to arrange for a loan, Mr. Pantin."

"To what amount, Mrs. Toomey?"

Mrs. Toomey considered.

"As much as you could conveniently spare."

The smile which Mr. Pantin endeavored to conceal was genuine.

"For what length of time?"

Mrs. Toomey had not thought of that.

"I could not say exactly—not off-hand like this—but I presume only until my husband gets into something."

"Has he—er—anything definite in view?"

"I wouldn't say definite, not definite, but he has several irons in the fire and we expect to hear soon."

"I see." Mr. Pantin's manner was urbane but, observing him closely, Mrs. Toomey noted that his eyes suddenly presented the curious illusion of two slate-gray pools covered with skim ice. It was not an encouraging sign and her heart sank in spite of the superlative suavity of the tone in which he inquired:

"What security would you be able to give, Mrs. Toomey?"

Security? Between friends? She had not expected this.

"I—I'm afraid I—we haven't any, Mr. Pantin. You know we lost everything when we lost the ranch. But you're perfectly safe—you needn't have a moment's anxiety about that."

Immediately it seemed as though invisible hands shot out to push her away, yet Mr. Pantin's tone was bland as he replied:

"I should be delighted to be able to accommodate you, but just at the present time—"

"You can't? Oh, I wish you would reconsider—as a matter of friendship. We need it—desperately, Mr. Pantin!" Her voice shook.

Again she had the sensation of invisible hands fighting her off.

"I regret very much—"

The hopelessness of any further plea swept over her. She arose with a gesture of despair, and Mr. Pantin, smiling, suave, urbane, bowed her out and closed the door. He watched her go down the walk and through the gate, noting her momentary hesitation and wondering where she might be going in such a wind. When she started in the opposite direction from home and walked rapidly down the road that led out of town it flashed through his mind that she might be bent on suicide—she had looked desperate, no mistake, but, since there was no water in which to drown herself, and no tree from which to hang herself, and the country was so flat that there was nothing high enough for her to jump off of and break her neck, he concluded there was no real cause for uneasiness.

It was Mr. Pantin's proud boast that he never yet had "held the sack," and now he thought complacently as he turned from the window, grabbed the shovel and whisk and leaped for an ash that had dropped, that this was an instance where he had again shown excellent judgment in not allowing his warm heart and impulses to control his head.



CHAPTER VII

THE BLOOD OF JEZEBEL

The prognostication made by the citizens of Prouty that it was "gettin' ready for somethin'" seemed about to be verified out on the sheep range twenty miles distant, for at five o'clock one afternoon the wind stopped as suddenly as it had arisen and heavy snow clouds came out of the northeast with incredible swiftness.

Mormon Joe walked to the door of the cook tent and swept the darkening hills with anxious eyes. Kate should have been back long before this. He always had a dread of her horse falling on her and hurting her too badly to get back. That was about all there was to fear in summer time, but to-night there was the coming storm.

Kate's sense of direction was remarkable, but the most experienced plainsman would be apt to lose himself in these foothills, with the snow falling thick and the night so black he could not see his hand before his face.

Mormon Joe shook his head and turned back to his task of peeling potatoes. While he worked he reproached himself that he had not hunted those horses himself; but she had been so insistent upon going. She did not mind the wind, she had said, but then she did not "mind" anything, when it came to that. What would have been hardships for another were merely adventures to her.

At any rate, Kate was more comfortable now than she had been the year before. He smiled a little as he recalled her delight in the sheep wagon which he had given her to be her own quarters. He had had to borrow the money at the bank in addition to what he already had borrowed for running expenses, but his circumstances justified it. He was getting ahead, not with phenomenal rapidity, but satisfactorily. With the leases, and the land he owned, he was building the future upon a substantial foundation. A few years more of economy and attention to business and he could give Kate the advantages he wished. He listened, got up from the condensed-milk box upon which he sat and walked to the entrance of the tent once more. He strained his ears, but death itself was not more still than the opaque night.

Kate had left immediately after breakfast, and since the horses had only a few hours' start and would probably feed as they went, she had expected to be back by noon.

Kate was exceedingly resourceful—she knew what to do if caught out, he assured himself, unless she had been hurt. It was this thought that gave him a curious stillness at his heart. What would life be without her now? With the knife in his hand he stopped as he turned inside and stared at the potatoes on the box. He never had thought of that before—it left him aghast.

The girl had twined herself into every fiber of his nature from the time she had come to him as a child. She was identified with every hope. Humph! He knew well enough what the answer would be if anything happened to Kate. He would shoot the chutes, again—quick. It was she who had awakened his ambition and kept him tolerably straight. Without her? Humph!

He stoked the sheet-iron camp stove, put the potatoes to boil, cut chops enough for two and laid the table with the steel knives and forks and tin plates. Then he set out a tin of molasses and the sour-dough bread, after which there was nothing to do but wait for the potatoes to boil, and for Kate.

He was trying the potatoes with a fork when he raised his head sharply. He was sure he heard the rattle of rocks. A faint whoop followed.

"Thank God!" He breathed the ejaculation fervently, yet he said merely as he stood in the entrance puffing his pipe as she rode up, "Got 'em, I see, Katie!"

"Sure. Don't I always get what I go after?" Then, with a tired laugh, "I'm disappointed; I thought you would be worried about me."

He smiled quizzically.

"I don't know why you'd think that."

"I'll know better next time," she replied good-humoredly, as she swung down with obvious weariness.

"There won't be any next time," he replied abruptly, "at least not at this season of the year."

"Oh, but I'm glad I went," she interposed hastily.

As Mormon Joe unwrapped the lead-rope from the saddle horn and took the horses away to picket, he wondered what wonderful adventure she would have to relate, for she seemed able to extract entertainment from nearly anything. By the time he returned she had removed her hat, gloves and spurs, washed her dust-streaked face, smoothed her hair, slipped on an enveloping apron over her riding clothes and had the chops frying.

The sight warmed his heart as he paused for a moment outside the circle of light which came through the entrance.

He had seen the same thing often before, but it never had impressed him particularly. Her presence in the canvas tent made the difference between home and a mere shelter. The small crumbs of bread he had cast upon the water were indeed coming back to him.

"I've ridden over forty miles since morning," she chattered, while he flung the snow flakes from his hat brim and brushed them from his shoulders. "The wind blew the horses' tracks out so I couldn't follow them. I never caught sight of them until just this side of Prouty. You can sit down, Uncle Joe—everything's ready."

They talked of the coming snowstorm, and the advisability of holding the sheep on the bed-ground if it should be a bad one; of the trip to town that he was contemplating; of the coyote that was bothering and the possibility of trapping him. There was no dearth of topics of mutual interest. Nevertheless, Mormon Joe knew that she was holding something in reserve and wondered at this reticence. It came finally when they had finished and still lingered at the table.

"Who do you suppose I met to-day when I was hunting horses?"

"Teeters?" Mormon Joe was tearing a leaf from his book of cigarette papers.

"Guess again."

He shook his head.

"Can't imagine."

She announced impressively:

"Mrs. Toomey!"

He was distributing tobacco from the sack upon the crease in the paper with exactitude. He made no comment, so Kate said with increased emphasis:

"She was crying!"

Still he was silent, and she demanded:

"Aren't you surprised?"

She looked crestfallen, so he asked obligingly:

"Where did all of this happen?"

"In a draw a couple of miles this side of Prouty, where I found the horses. They had gone there to get out of the wind and it was by only a chance that I rode down into it.

"She was in the bottom, huddled against a rock, and didn't see me until I was nearly on her. I thought she was sick—she looked terrible."

"And was she?"

"No—she was worried."

"Naturally. Any woman would be who married Toomey."

"About money."

"Indeed." His tone and smile were ironic.

Kate, a trifle disconcerted, continued:

"He's had bad luck."

"He's had the best opportunities of any man who's come into the country."

"Anyway," she faltered, "they haven't a penny except when they sell something."

He shrugged a shoulder, then asked teasingly:

"Well—what were you thinking of doing about it?"

"I said—I promised," she blurted it out bluntly, "that we'd loan them money."

"What!" incredulously.

"I did, Uncle Joe."

He answered with a frown of annoyance:

"You exceeded your authority, Katie."

"But you will, won't you?" she pleaded. "You've never refused me anything that I really wanted badly, and I've never asked much, have I?"

"No, girl, you haven't," he replied gently. "And there's hardly anything you could ask, within reason, that wouldn't be granted."

"But they only need five hundred until he gets into something. You could let them have that, couldn't you?"

His face and eyes hardened.

"I could, but I won't," he replied curtly.

When Prouty was in its infancy, certain citizens had been misled by Mormon Joe's mild eyes, low voice and quiet manner. His easy-going exterior concealed an incredible hardness upon occasions, but this was Kate's first knowledge of it. He never had displayed the slightest authority. In any difference, when he had not yielded to her good-naturedly, they had argued it out as though they were in reality partners. At another time she would have been wounded by his brusque refusal, but to-night it angered her. Because of her intense eagerness and confidence that she had only to ask him, it came as the keenest of disappointments. This together with her fatigue combined to produce a display of temper as unusual in her as Mormon Joe's own attitude.

"But I promised!" she cried, impatiently. "And you've told me I must always keep my promise, 'if it takes the hide'!"

"You exceeded your authority," he reiterated. "You've no right to promise what doesn't belong to you."

"Then it's all 'talk' about our being partners," she said, sneeringly. "You don't mean a word of it."

"You shan't make a fool of yourself, Katie, if I can help it," he retorted.

"Because you don't care for friends, you don't want me to have any!" she flung at him hotly.

He was silent a long time, thinking, while she waited angrily, then he responded quietly and with obvious effort:

"That's where you're mistaken, Katie. If I have one regret it is that in the past I have not more deliberately cultivated the friendship of true men and gentle women when I have had the opportunity. It doesn't make much difference whether they are brilliant or rich or successful, if only they are true-hearted. Loyalty is the great attribute—but," and he shrugged a shoulder, "it is my judgment that you will not find it in that quarter."

"You're prejudiced."

"It is my privilege to have an opinion," he replied coldly.

"We were going to be friends—Mrs. Toomey and I—we shook hands on it!" Tears of angry disappointment were close to the surface.

He replied, doggedly:

"If you have to buy your friendships, Katie, you'd better keep your money."

The speech stung her. She glared at him across the narrow table, and, in the moment, each had a sense of unreality. The quarrel was like a bolt from the blue, as startling and unexpected—as most quarrels are—the bitterest and most lasting. Then she sprang to her feet and hurled a taunt at him some Imp of Darkness must have suggested:

"You're jealous!" She stamped a foot at him. "That's the real reason. You're jealous of everybody that would be friends with me! You're jealous of Hughie. You didn't like his coming here and you don't like his writing to me! I hate you—I won't stay any longer!" It was the blood of Jezebel of the Sand Coulee talking, and there was the look of her mother on the girl's face, in her reckless, uncontrolled fury.

Mormon Joe winced, exactly as though she had struck him. He sat quite still while the color faded, leaving his face bloodless. Kate never had known anything like the white rage it depicted. Persons at the Sand Coulee who lost their temper cursed volubly and loudly, and threatened or made bodily attacks upon the cause of it. In spite of herself she shrank a little as he, too, got up slowly and faced her. She didn't know him at all—this man who first threw his cigarette away carefully, as though he were in a drawing room and must regard the ashes—he was a personality from an environment with which she was unfamiliar. Then, as though she were his equal in years, experience and intelligence, he spoke to her in a tone that was cool and impersonal, yet which went slash! slash! slash! like the fine, deep, quick cut of a razor.

"I had no notion that you entertained any such feeling towards me. It is something in the nature of a—er—revelation. You are quite right about leaving. Upon second thought, you are quite right about everything—right to keep your promise to Mrs. Toomey, since you gave it, right in your assertion that I am jealous. I am—but not in the sense in which you mean it.

"I have been jealous of your dignity—of the respect that is due you. I have resented keenly any attempt to belittle you. That is why Disston was not welcome when he came to see you. It is the reason why I have not shown a pleasure I did not feel in his writing you!"

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

"I mean that he took you to that dance on a wager—a bet—to prove that he had the courage. To make a spectacle of you—for a story with which to regale his friends and laugh over."

She groped for the edge of the table.

"Who told you?"

"Toomey."

"I don't believe it!"

"Teeters verified it."

She sat down on the box from which she had risen.

Unmoved by the blow he had dealt her, he continued:

"You went to that dance against my wishes. What I expected to happen did happen, though you did not choose to tell me.

"In my descent through various strata of society I have learned something of types and of human nature. In protesting, my only thought was to save you pain and disappointment—as in this instance—but experience, it seems, is the only teacher.

"To-morrow I am going to Prouty, hire a herder to do your work and mortgage the outfit for half its value. It will be yours to use as it pleases you. You have earned it. Then," with a gesture of finality, "the door is open to you. I want you to go where you will be happy."

With his usual deliberation of movement he put on his hat and went out to change the horses on picket, while Kate, stunned by the incredible crisis and the revelation concerning Hugh Disston, sat where she had dropped, staring at the agate-ware platter upon which the mutton grease was hardening.

It was Mormon Joe's invariable custom to help her with the dishes, but he did not return, so she arose, finally, and set the food away automatically, with the unseeing look of a hypnotic subject. She washed the dishes and dried them, trying to realize that she would be leaving this shortly—that there would be a last time in the immediate future. Her anger was lost in grief and amazement. There was something so implacable, so steel-like in Mormon Joe's hardness that it did not occur to her to plead with him for forgiveness. And Hughie! She told herself that she could not turn to a traitor for help or sympathy. She blew out the lantern, tied the tent flap behind her, and ran through the fast falling snow to her wagon.

Kate dozed towards morning after a sleepless night of wretchedness and was awakened by a horse's whinny. Listening a moment, she sprang out and looked through the upper half of the door which opened on hinges. It was a white world that she saw, with some four inches of snow on the level, though the fall had ceased and it was colder. Mormon Joe, dressed warmly in leather "chaps" and sheep-lined coat, was riding away on one of the work horses.

Never since they had been together had he gone to Prouty without some word of farewell—careless and casual, but unfailing. Nor could she remember when he had not turned in the saddle and waved at her before they lost sight of each other altogether. This time she waited vainly. He went without looking behind him, while she stood in the cold watching his peaked high-crowned hat bobbing through the giant sagebrush until it vanished. She had thrust out a hand to detain him—to call after him—and had withdrawn it. Her pride would not yet permit her to act as her heart prompted.



CHAPTER VIII

THE MAN OF MYSTERY

The cold that dried the new-fallen snow to powder sent the mercury down until it broke all records.

While the improvident did, indeed, wonder what they had done with their summer wages, the thrifty contemplated their piles of wood and their winter vegetables with a strong feeling of satisfaction.

Speaking colloquially, the Toomeys were "ga'nted considerably," and in their usual state of semistarvation, but were in no immediate danger of freezing, owing to the fact that Toomey had succeeded in exchanging a mounted deer head for four tons of local coal mined from a "surface blossom," which was being exploited by the Grit as one of the country's resources.

Vastly delighted with his bargain, until he discovered that he no sooner had arrived from the coalhouse with a bucket of coal than it was necessary for him to make a return trip with a bucket of ashes, Toomey now hurled anathemas upon the embryo coal baron. It was not empty verbiage when he asserted that, by spring, at the rate he was wearing a trench to the ash can, nothing but the top of his head would be visible.

Mrs. Toomey, however, was grateful, for she felt that if there was one thing worse than being hungry it was being cold, so she stoked the kitchen range with a free hand and luxuriated in the warmth though it necessitated frequent trips outside in Toomey's absence.

Mrs. Toomey was returning from the ash can when she saw Mormon Joe going into his shack on the diagonal corner. She slackened her trot to a walk and watched while he unlocked the door, as though to read from his back something of his intentions in regard to the loan Kate had promised so confidently.

It had seemed too good to be realized, so she had not told Jap of their meeting. She must not count on it, however—she had been disappointed so often that she dreaded the feeling. Ugh! What frightful cold! Mrs. Toomey ran into the house and forgot the incident.

Later in the afternoon Toomey came home in high spirits.

"They got in!" he announced. "I hardly thought they'd start, such weather. It's twenty-five below now and getting colder."

"Who?" inquired Mrs. Toomey, absently.

"The show people."

"Oh, did they?"

"Might as well take it in, mightn't we?" in feigned indifference.

"How can we? It's a dollar a ticket, isn't it?"

For answer he produced two strips of pink pasteboard from his waistcoat pocket.

"Jap?" wonderingly.

"Yes'm."

"Where did you get the money?"

"I raised it."

"But how?"

He hesitated, looking sheepish.

"On the range."

Mrs. Toomey sat down weakly.

"The cook stove! You mortgaged it?"

"I had to give some security, hadn't I?" he demanded with asperity.

"Who to?"

"Teeters. I got five dollars."

Mrs. Toomey found it convenient to go into the pantry until she had regained control of her feelings.

It was twenty-eight degrees below zero when the doors of the Opera House were opened to permit the citizens of Prouty to hear the World Renowned Swiss Bell Ringers and Yodlers.

The weather proved to be no deterrent to a community hungry for entertainment, and they swarmed from all directions, bundled to shapelessness, like Esquimaux headed for a central igloo. Infants in arms and the bedridden in wheel chairs, helped to fill the Opera House to its capacity, emptying the streets and houses for a time as completely as an exodus.

While the best people, among whom were the Toomeys, occupied the several rows of reserved chairs and smiled tolerantly upon the efforts of the performers, and the proletariat stamped and whistled through its teeth and cracked peanuts, a man muffled to the ears by the high collar of a mackinaw coat, his face further concealed by the visor of a cap and ear-laps, rode to the top of the bench, drew rein and looked down upon the lights of Prouty.

It was not a night one would select for traveling on horseback, unless his business was urgent. However, the man's seemed to be of this nature, for he rode behind a large signboard which advertised the wares of the Prouty Emporium, dismounted, tied his horse to the prop that held the signboard upright, and with a show of haste took a coil of rope from his saddlehorn, an axe—the head of which was wrapped in gunny sacking—and a gun that swung in loops of saddle thongs at an angle to fit comfortably in the bend of the rider's knee.

He did not follow the road, but took a shorter cut straight down the steep side of the bench to the nearest alley, through which he ran as noiselessly as a coyote. He ran until he came to Main Street, which the alley bisected. In the shade of the Security State Bank he peered around the corner and listened. The street was deserted, not even a dog or prowling cat was visible the entire length of it.

The man crossed it hurriedly, looking up and down and over his shoulder furtively, like some cautious animal which fears itself followed. In the protection of the alley he ran again until he came to Mormon Joe's tar-paper shack setting square and ugly in the middle of the lot—an eyesore to the neighbors.

The door was locked, but it was the work of a second to tear off the axe-head's covering and pry it open. He stepped inside and closed the door quietly. Lighting the candle he took from his pocket, with his hand he shielded the flame from the one window, and looked about with a glance that took in every detail of the shack's arrangement.

A single iron bedstead extended into the room and a soogan and two blankets, thin and ragged from service, were heaped in the middle. There was no pillow, and a hard cotton pad constituted the mattress. An empty whiskey bottle stood by the head of the bed.

A small pine table that at most might have cost a couple of dollars set against the wall by the window. The starch box that served as a chair was shoved under the table, and another box in the corner did duty as a washstand. There was a cake of soap and a tin basin upon the latter and a grimy hand towel hung close by from a spike driven into the unplaned boards. Facing the door was a sheet-iron camp stove, rusty and overflowing with ashes. The rickety, ill-fitting pipe was secured with the inevitable baling wire.

After his swift survey, the man stepped to the washstand and let a few drops of melted candle grease drip upon one corner. In this he held the candle until it hardened in place. Then he went to work with the businesslike swiftness of skill and experience.

He laid the shotgun on the stove and untwisted the baling wire which held the stovepipe, giving a grunt of satisfaction when he found the wire was longer than he had anticipated. He stooped and gathered some kindling that was under the stove, singled out two or three sticks that suited him, and then he laid them across the top of the stove and rested the barrel of the shotgun upon them. After all was complete, he stepped back against the door and squinted, gauging the elevation. It was to his satisfaction. With supple wrist and quick movements he uncoiled the small cotton rope he had brought with him and took two turns around the trigger of the shotgun. The rest of the rope he passed around a rod in the foot of the bed, which gave a direct back pull on the trigger, and thence he carried it over the upper hinge of the door, which opened inward, and finally down to the knob and back again to the foot of the bed, where he secured it.

All was executed without a superfluous movement, and a panther could not have been more noiseless. But the man was breathing heavily when he had finished, as hard as though he had been exercising violently. He stepped to the washstand to blow out the candle, but before he did so he gave a final rapid survey of his work. His eyes glittered with sinister satisfaction. Evidently it suited him. He held his numbed fingers over the flame of the candle to warm them before he extinguished it.

Reaching for the axe, he pried the window from its casing and set it quietly against the wall. He leaned the axe beside it and cursed under his breath when he tore a button from his mackinaw as he squeezed through the narrow opening. He dropped lightly to the ground and, crouching, ran for the alley. Where it crossed Main Street he stopped and listened, then peered around the corner of the White Hand Laundry. The street was still empty.

While he stood, the sound of laughter came faintly from the Opera House. His heart was pounding under his mackinaw. On the other side of the street red and violet lights were shining through the frosted windows of "Doc" Fussel's drug store. They looked warm and alluring, and he hesitated.

A whinny pierced the stillness. It was his horse pawing with cold and impatience behind the signboard. He looked up at the indistinct black object on the bench, then back wistfully at the red and violet lights of the drug store. He had an intense desire to be near some one—some one who was going carelessly about his usual occupation.

He crossed over and went into the little apothecary. The clerk was sitting on the back of his neck with his feet to a counter listening to the phonograph. "Has anybody here seen Kelly?" the machine screeched as the stranger entered. The clerk got up and went to the tobacco counter.

"Hell of a night," he observed, languidly.

"Some chilly," replied the stranger, indicating the brand he wanted.

"It'll be close to forty below before morning," passing out the tobacco.

"Everybody's gone to the show but me," plaintively.

"A drug clerk might as well be a dog chained up in a kennel." He stopped the phonograph and changed the needle.

The stranger sat down beside the stove and placed his feet on the nickel railing. He left the collar of his mackinaw turned up, but untied his ear-laps. They looked rather foolish, dangling. His eyes were shadowed by the visor of his cap, so that really only his nose and cheek bones were visible. He glanced at the big clock on the wall frequently, and at intervals wiped the palms of his hands on the knees of his corduroy trousers as though to remove the moisture.

The clerk was putting on "When the Springtime Comes, Gentle Annie" when the opening door let in a breath from the Arctic and a tall person wearing new overalls, a coat of fleece-lined canvas and a peak-crowned Stetson. He had a scarf wound about his neck after the fashion of sheepherders.

"Hello, Bowers! Sober?" inquired the clerk, casually.

"Kinda. What you playin'?"

The clerk told him.

"Got a piece called 'The Yella Rose o' Texas Beats the Belles o' Tennessee'?"

"Never heard of it."

"Got—'Whur the Silver Colorady Wends its Way'?"

The clerk replied in the negative.

"Why don't you git some good music?"

"Why aren't you at the show?"

"Too contrary, I reckon. When I'm out in the hills I'm a hankerin' to see somebody. When I git in town I want to git away from everybody. I'm goin' out to-morrow."

"Where you going?"

"Hired out to Mormon Joe this evenin'."

The stranger stirred slightly.

"I'll look around a little—I don't want nothin'," said Bowers.

"Help yourself," replied the clerk, amiably, so the sheepherder stared at the baubles of cut glass on the shelf with a pleased expression and hung over the counter where the rings, watches and bracelets glittered. Then he examined a string of sponges carefully—sponges always interested him—they suggested picturesque scenery and adventures. He lingered over the toilet articles, sniffing the soaps and smelling at the bottles of perfume, trying those whose names he especially fancied on the end of his nose by rubbing it with the glass stopper. Then he sat down on the other side of the stove from the stranger and spelled out the queer names on the jars of drugs, speculating as to their contents and uses. He never yet had exhausted the possibilities of a drug store as a means of entertainment.

A few minutes after ten the advance guard came from the Opera House—laughing. The World's Greatest Prestidigitator had dropped the egg which he intended taking from the ear of Governor Sudds where it had broken into the ample lap of Mrs. Vernon Wentz of the White Hand Laundry. The cold, however, promptly put a quietus upon their merriment and they scuttled past, bent on getting out of it as quickly as possible.

There were two customers for cigars, and the Toomeys. Toomey bought chocolates while Mrs. Toomey held her hands to the stove and shivered.

"Come on, Dell." Toomey's glance as he took the candy included the stranger.

"How're you?" he nodded carelessly.

They were to be the last, apparently, for when their footsteps died away the street again grew silent.

The clerk planted his feet on the nickel railing and stared at the stove gloomily.

"I'd have to keep this store open till half-past 'leven if I was dyin'," he grumbled.

"But you ain't," said Bowers, cheerfully.

Bowers smelled strongly of sheep, once the heat warmed his clothing. On the other side of the clerk the odor of smoke and bear grease emanated from the stranger. The clerk moved his chair back from the stove and advised the latter:

"Your soles is fryin'."

He seemed not to hear him, for his eyes were upon the clock creeping close to eleven, and he watched the swaying pendulum as though it fascinated him. There was no conversation, and each sat thinking his own thoughts until the stranger suddenly pulled down the side of his collar and listened. The clerk eyed him with disfavor. The squeaking of footsteps in the dry snow was heard distinctly. The stranger got up leisurely and went out with a grunt that was intended for "good evening."

"Sociable cuss," Bowers commented ironically.

"Smelt like an Injun tepee," said the clerk, sourly.

"It's a wonder to me fellers don't notice theirselves," Bowers observed. "But they never seem to."

A weaving figure was making its way down the middle of Main Street. A thick-coated collie followed closely. The swaying figure looked like a drunken gnome in its clumsy coat and peak-crowned hat in the cold steel-blue starlight. It stopped uncertainly at the alley, then went on to the end of the block and turned the corner.

The Toomeys had lost no time in retiring after the entertainment, for the house, upon their return, was like a refrigerator. Almost instantly Toomey was slumbering tranquilly, but Mrs. Toomey had symptoms which she recognized as presaging hours of wakefulness. The unwonted excitement of being out in the evening had much to do with her restlessness, but chiefly it came from thinking of the cook stove. Of course she could see the force of Jap's argument as to the necessity of keeping up appearances by being seen in public places and spending money as though there was more where that came from, yet she wondered if it really deceived anybody.

And supposing Teeters foreclosed the mortgage! It seemed as though they were slipping week by week, day by day, deeper into the black depths at the bottom of which was actual beggary. Her nervousness increased as her imagination painted darker and darker pictures until she longed to scream for the relief it would have afforded her. The single hope was Mormon Joe's Kate and her promise, and that was too fantastic and farfetched to dare count on. It was not logical to suppose that a man whom Jap had quarreled with and insulted would come to their rescue even if he could afford to do so, which she doubted.

How still it was—the eloquent stillness of terrible cold! The town was soundless. Chickens humped in their feathers were freezing on their roosts, horses and cows tied in their stalls were suffering, and, as always, she visualized the desolate white stretches where hungry coyotes, gaunt and vigilant, padded along the ridges, and horses and cattle, turned out to shift for themselves, huddled shivering in the gulches and under the willows.

She knew from the snapping and cracking of lumber and metal about the house that it was growing colder, and she drew the covers closer. Oh, what a country to live in! Whatever was to become of them! Her teeth chattered.

She thought she heard footsteps and raised her head slightly to listen. Faint at first, they were coming nearer. Whoever was out a night like this, she could not imagine. The person was walking in the middle of the road and his progress was uneven, stopping sometimes altogether, then going forward. Abreast the house the sound of heels grinding in the snow that was dry as powder was like the scrunching and squealing of the steel tire of a wagon in bitter weather.

They passed, grew fainter, finally stopped altogether. Mrs. Toomey moved closer to her husband. There was comfort in the nearness of a human being.

A shot! Her heart jumped—her nerves twanged with the shock of it. "That hit something!" The thought was almost simultaneous. The sound was more like an explosion—deadened, muffled somewhat—as of a charge fired into a bale of hay or cotton. For the space of a dozen heartbeats she lay with her mouth open, breathless in the deathly silence of the frozen night.

A scream! It must have reached the sky. Piercing, agonized—the agony of a man screaming with his mouth wide open—screaming without restraint, in animal-like unconsciousness of what he was doing.

"Jap!" She clutched his arm and shook him.

The screams kept coming, blood curdling, as if they would split the throat, tear it, and horrible with suffering.

"Jap!" She sat up and shook his shoulder violently.

"Wha's the matter?" he asked, sleepily.

"Did you hear that shot? Listen!"

"Some drunk," he mumbled.

"He's hurt, I tell you! Hear him!"

"Drug store's open."

"Oughtn't you to go to him?"

"Lemme be—can't you?" He again breathed heavily.

The screams kept coming, but each a little fainter. Either the man was moving on or the pain was lessening. Mrs. Toomey's heart continued to thump as she lay rigid, listening. She wanted to get up and look through the window, but the floor was cold and she could not remember exactly where she had left her slippers. Anyway, somebody else would go to him. It was a relief, though, when he stopped screaming.

Others whom the cries of agony awakened applied the same reasoning to the situation, with minor variations. "Tinhorn" in particular was disturbed because of their nearness. He raised his head from under a mound of blankets and frowned into the darkness as he wondered if, as Prouty's newly elected mayor, he would be criticized should he fail to go out and investigate. He was so warm and comfortable!

"Guess I'd better get up, Mamma."

His wife gripped him as if he was struggling violently, although his Honor was lying motionless as an alligator.

"You shan't—you'll get pneumonia and leave me and the children without any insurance! You've no right to take chances. Let somebody else go that hasn't any future."

There was that side to it.

"Some hobo most like." The future statesman turned over. "Tuck my back in, Mamma."

Mr. Sudds was awakened, and his first impulse was to rush to the man's assistance, but he was not sure where to find matches, and it took him such an unconscionable time to dress that by the time he got there—

Scales was restrained by the arms of his fragile wife who threatened hysterics if he left her. Between love and duty Mr. Scales did not hesitate with the thermometer at forty below zero, and the knowledge that loss of sleep unfitted him for business.

So Mormon Joe, screaming in his agony, staggered up the alley, leaving a crimson trail behind him, the sheep dog following like a shadow. He had nearly reached Main Street when he lurched, groped for a support, then fell to his knees. The hot drops turned to red globules in the snow as he kept crawling, gasping, "Oh, God! Won't somebody come to me?" The dog walked beside him as he dragged himself along, perplexed and wondering at this whim of his master's.

Mormon Joe was leaning against the side of the White Hand Laundry, his head fallen forward, when Bowers and the drug clerk got to him. The collie was licking his face for attention, but the warm caressing hand—now red and sticky—was lying in the snow, limp and unresponsive.

Mormon Joe had "gone over"—dying as he had lived—a man of mystery.



CHAPTER IX

THE SUMMONS

Bowers had offered to take Lingle, the Deputy Sheriff, to the sheep camp, which he was sure he could find easily from the directions Mormon Joe had given him when he hired him, but, as it proved, the herder had been over-sanguine.

They were hungry and tired from long hours in the saddle, and the breath frozen on their upturned collars testified to the continued extremity of the weather when for the hundredth time they checked their horses and tried to get their bearings.

"I'm certain sure that Mormon Joe said to ride abreast that peak and about a half mile to the left of it turn in to a 'draw' runnin' northeast by southwest, and ride until I come acrost the wagon."

"Don't see how a child could miss the way from that description," replied Lingle, sarcastically.

"I think I see a woolie movin'." Bowers squinted across the white expanse and the deputy endeavored to follow his gaze, but could see nothing but dancing specks due to a mild case of snow blindness. "Yep—that's a woolie. I'm so used to 'em I kin tell what a sheep is thinkin' from here to them mountains."

Reining their horses at the top of a "draw" a quarter of an hour later they looked down upon the sheep wagon in a clearing in the sagebrush, together with the tepee and cook tent. Urging their horses down the steep side they dismounted and went inside the latter, where soiled breakfast dishes sat on the unplaned boards which served as a table. In the way of food there was only a can of molasses and a half dozen biscuits frozen solid.

"Real cozy and homelike," Lingle commented, as he tried to pour himself some cold coffee and found it frozen. "I'll look around a bit and then go up and tell her."

"I'd ruther it ud be you than me," Bowers observed grimly. "Can't abide hearin' a female take on and beller. I don't like the sect, noway. You kin bet I don't aim to stay no longer than she kin git another herder, neither."

But Lingle was already out of hearing of the querulous voice of the misogynist, and peering into the tepee which was as Mormon Joe had left it he noted that it contained an unmade bed, and extra pair of shoes, and a few articles of wearing apparel—that was all.

The door of the sheep wagon was unlocked, yet he hesitated a moment before opening it. Its examination was in line with his duty, however, so he opened it and looked about with a certain amount of curiosity. The bare, cold stillness of it went to his marrow.

There was something pathetic to him in the pitiful attempts at home making shown in the few crude decorations. A feminine instinct for domesticity evidenced itself in the imitation of the scalloped border of a lace curtain made in soap on the glass of the small window in the back of the wagon, in a pin cushion of coarse muslin worked in blue worsted yarn, in the bouquet of dried goldenrod in a bottle, in the highly colored picture of an ammunition company's advertisement pinned to the canvas wall. A snag of a comb and a brush were thrust in a wooden strip near the small cheap mirror.

Above the bunk two loops of wire were suspended from an oak bow of the wagon top, which obviously was where the occupant kept her rifle. There was a tiny stove by the door and a cupboard beside it, the shelves of which were crowded with books whose titles made the sheriff's eyes open. A Latin grammar, a Roman history, the "Story of the French Revolution," mythology, and many others that might as well have been Greek for all the meaning their titles conveyed to the deputy.

"Whew!" he whistled softly. He had no idea that Mormon Joe's Kate had any education. He had the impression that she was, in his own phraseology, "a tough customer." Mormon Joe must have taught her, he reflected. There never was any doubt about his learning when it suited him to display it. The discovery increased the sheriff's curiosity to see the girl.

Continuing his investigations, he opened one of the drawers that pulled out from beneath the bunk, and closed it hastily—but not too soon to see that the undergarments it contained were made of flour sacks which had been ripped, laundered and fashioned clumsily by a hand unused to sewing. In the drawer on the other side there were clippings giving recipes for improving the complexion, hair treatments, care of the teeth and nails, and other aids to beauty.

Lingle smiled as he glanced at them. Evidently she had traits that were distinctly feminine. In addition, there were writing materials and a packet of letters addressed in a masculine hand that looked unformed and youthful. They were tied with a pink ribbon, and had the appearance of having been read frequently. Lingle fingered the packet uncertainly and then threw it back in the drawer impatiently.

"Thunder!" he muttered, "I ain't paid to snoop through a woman's letters."

On the southern slope of a foothill where the snow lay less deep than on the northern and eastern exposures, Kate stood on the sunny side of a brown boulder leaning her shoulder against it as she watched the sheep below her nibbling at the spears of dried bunch grass which thrust themselves above the surface. Her rifle stood against a rock where she could reach it easily, and her horse fed near her, pawing through the snow, like an experienced "rustler."

She was dressed to meet the weather in boys' boots and arctics, woolen mittens, riding skirt of heavy blue denim, the fleece-lined canvas coat of the sheepherder, and a coonskin cap with ear-laps. Her face wore an expression that was both sad and troubled as she mechanically watched such sheep as showed a disposition to stray, and kept an eye out for coyotes.

Save in her sleep, her quarrel with Mormon Joe had not been out of her mind since, three days before, she had stood shivering at the door and watched him vanish through the sagebrush. Now, in addition, she was worried over his absence. She had kept supper waiting until long after her usual bedtime and to-day she had worn a trail to the top of the hill, watching, and still had seen no sign of him. Poignant regret for what she had said and shame for her ingratitude overwhelmed her. Along with the feelings was a fear lest he refuse to forgive her and insist upon her leaving. Then, too, there was her promise to Mrs. Toomey.

Kate was confronted with her first problem. She had threshed it out, turned it over and over, finally arriving at the conclusion that she must keep her promise at any cost to herself. A promise was a promise, and she had given her hand on it. Her regard for her word was a dominant trait in Kate. Mormon Joe had fostered this ideal by words and his own example. So she had slowly made up her mind that having given her word she would not recall it, though it would be a high price to pay for a principle if it cost her his friendship and protection.

Kate intended to plead with him; to beg his forgiveness upon her knees, if necessary; to put her arms about his neck and make him understand how much she loved him. She had taken everything for granted heretofore, as her right because he had given it so readily, but all would be different if only he would forget what she had said and give her another opportunity, and if he would let her keep her promise to Mrs. Toomey she would herd sheep until she had saved the amount in a herder's wages.

This was her plan after sleepless hours and three days of thinking. Until their quarrel Kate never would have doubted that she could have her way without much difficulty, but then she had not met the cool polite stranger with the adamant beneath his polished exterior. The girl wondered if the whimsical unselfish friend and comrade ever would come back to her. The doubt of it set her chin quivering.

Kate trudged through the snow to turn back the sheep that Bowers had seen, and at the top of the hill stopped and gave a cry of relief and gladness. A thin blue thread of smoke was rising from the "draw" and she wondered how anyone could have come without her seeing them. She looked at the sun and calculated that she could shortly be starting the sheep back to the bed-ground, and her spirits rose immeasurably as she sent the strays scampering back to the others and returned to the small warmth which the sunny side of the rock afforded.

Kate was leaning against the boulder conjecturing as to whether it was Mormon Joe or the herder who had arrived, when Lingle rode around the side of the hill and came upon her suddenly.

Immediately the deputy's face set in lines of sternness. He had been rehearsing his part in the dialogue which was to follow and believed he had it sufficiently well in hand to play the act admirably. This murder was the first big case he had had since being appointed deputy. It was a great opportunity and he meant to make the most of it, for if handled creditably it might prove a stepping-stone to the sheriff's office. The element of surprise he knew was most effective and he was counting upon it to obtain valuable admissions. In the scene, as he visualized it while riding, he was to advance gimlet-eyed, throw open his coat and confront her with the badge which made the guilty tremble.

"Guess you know what I'm here for, Madam," he was to say significantly and harshly.

But like most prearranged things in life it all went differently. When he was close enough to see well his jaw dropped automatically. There was no more resemblance between the girl who straightened up and smiled upon him and the hard-featured woman he had pictured as "Mormon Joe's Kate," than there was between himself and the horse he was riding.

Younger by years than he had anticipated, she radiated wholesomeness, simple friendliness and candor. A strand of soft hair had slipped from beneath her cap and lay upon a cheek that was a vivid pink in the cold atmosphere; she had the clear skin of perfect health and her lips were red with the blood that was close to the surface, while the gray eyes with which she regarded him were frank and steady as she gazed at him inquiringly.

Lingle tugged at his hat brim instinctively.

"I thought you were a coyote when the sheep began running," she said, good-naturedly. "They've been bothering a lot this cold weather."

Lingle mumbled that he "presumed so."

"I suppose you are the new herder?"

"I came out with him," the deputy replied evasively.

"Didn't Uncle Joe come?" Kate's face fell in disappointment.

Lingle shifted his weight and looked elsewhere.

"He's in town yet," he answered.

Lingle knew instinctively that she thought Mormon Joe was drinking heavily.

Then, fixing her troubled eyes upon him she asked hesitatingly:

"Did he—say when I could expect him?"

The merciless hound of the law, who had dismounted, shuffled his feet uneasily and looked down to see if his badge was showing.

"Er—he didn't mention it." In the panic which seized him he could not frame the words in which to tell her, and he felt an illogical wrath at Bowers—the coward—for not coming with him. For a moment he considered resigning, then walked over to where her horse was feeding to collect himself while her wondering gaze followed him.

Lingle ran his hand along the horse's neck, the hair of which was stiff with dried sweat, lifted the saddle blanket and looked at its legs, where streaks of lather had hardened. He regarded her keenly as he turned to her.

"You been smokin' up your horse, I notice."

"I ran a coyote for two miles this morning—emptied my magazine at him and then didn't get him." The truth shining in her clear eyes was unmistakable.

Lingle broke off a handful of sagebrush and used it as a makeshift currycomb, while Kate, a little surprised at the action, picked up the bridle reins when he had finished the gratuitous grooming and started the sheep moving.

"I'll feed back to camp slowly. Don't wait for me—you and the herder eat supper."

"Anything I can do, ma'am?"

"Oh, no, thank you."

Bowers met the deputy at the door of the cook tent, his eyes gleaming with curiosity.

"Did she beller?"

Lingle sat down morosely and removed his spurs before answering.

"I didn't tell her."

"What!" Bowers fairly jumped at him. "What's the matter?"

"She might as well eat her supper, mightn't she?" defiantly.

"Do you know what I think?" Bowers pointed a spoon at him accusingly. "I think your nerve failed you. All I got to say is—you're a devil of an officer."

"Maybe you'd like to tell her," sneeringly.

"I shore ain't afraid to!" bristling. "I don't like to listen to a female's snifflin', and I say so, but when it comes to bein' afraid of one of 'em—" Bowers banged the pan of biscuits on the table to emphasize the small esteem in which he held women. "What fer a looker is she?" he demanded.

"You'd better eat your supper before she gets here."

"Bad as that?"

"Worse," grimly. "I ain't got educated words enough to describe her."

They had eaten by the light of the lantern, when they heard Kate coming.

She lifted the flap of the tent and smiled her friendly smile upon them.

"Goodness, but I'm glad I don't have to cook supper! I haven't had anything warm since morning."

Bowers stood with the broom in his hand, staring, while Kate removed her cap and jacket. Then he cast an evil look upon the deputy, a look which said, "You liar!"

As she made to get the food from the stove he interposed hastily:

"You set down, Ma'am."

Lingle gave him a look which was equally significant, a jeering look which said ironically, "Woman hater!"

Bowers colored with pleasure when she lauded his "cowpuncher potatoes" and exclaimed over the biscuits.

When Kate had finished she looked from one to the other and beamed upon them impartially.

"It's nice to see people. I haven't seen any one for six weeks except Uncle Joe," wistfully. "I wish he had come back with you—it's so lonesome."

There was an immediate silence and then Bowers cleared his throat noisily.

"Night 'fore last was tol'able chilly in your wagon, I reckon?"

Her face sobered.

"It was—terrible! I couldn't sleep for the cold, and thinking about and pitying the stock on the range, and anybody that had to be out in it. I was glad Uncle Joe was safe in Prouty—there was no need for us both to be out here suffering."

Again there was silence, and once more Bowers came to the rescue with a feeble witticism, at which he himself laughed hollowly:

"I hearn that a feller eatin' supper with a steel knife got his tongue froze to it, and they had a time thawin' him over the tea kettle."

Kate rose to clear away and wash the dishes, but Bowers motioned her to remain seated.

"You rest yourself, Ma'am. I was a pearl diver in a restauraw fer three months onct so I am, you might say, a professional."

"Uncle Joe and I take turns," Kate laughed, "for neither of us likes it."

"That's the best way," Bowers agreed, breaking the constrained silence which fell each time Mormon Joe's name was mentioned. "More pardners has fell out over dish-washin' and the throwin' of diamond hitches than any other causes."

When, to Kate's horror, Bowers had wiped off the top of the stove with the dishcloth and removed some lingering moisture from the inside of a frying pan with his elbow, she said, rising:

"I'm up at four, so I go to bed early. You can sleep in Uncle Joe's tepee," to Lingle, "and you needn't get up for breakfast when we do. I suppose," to Bowers, "you'll want to start in to-morrow, so I'll go with you and show you the range we're feeding over." With a friendly good night she turned towards the entrance.

Lingle rose with a look of desperation on his countenance.

"Just a minute." There was that in his voice which made her turn quickly and look from one to the other in wonder.

Lingle had a feeling that his vocal cords had turned to wire, they moved so stiffly, when he heard himself saying:

"Guess I'll have to ask you to take a ride with me to-morrow."

"Me?" Her eyes widened. "What for?"

The yellow flame flickered in the smudged chimney of the lantern on the table, a bit of burning wood fell out from the front of the stove and lay smoking on the dirt floor in front of it. Bowers stood rigid by the basin where he had been washing his hands, with the water dripping from his fingers.

In a frenzy to have it over the deputy blurted out harshly:

"Mormon Joe's been murdered!"

The girl gave a cry—sharp, anguished, as one might scream out with a crushed finger.

Bowers advanced a step and demanded fiercely of Lingle:

"Don't you know nothin'—not no damned nothin'?"

Kate's face was marble.

"You mean—he's dead—he won't come back here—ever?"

"You've said it," the deputy replied, huskily.

Kate walked back unsteadily to the seat she had just vacated and her head sank upon her folded arms on the table. She did not cry like a woman, but with deep tearless sobs that lifted her shoulders.

The two men stood with their hands hanging awkwardly, looking at each other. Then Bowers made a grimace and jerked his head towards the tent entrance. The deputy obeyed the signal and went out on tip-toe with the sheepherder following.

"She's got guts," said Bowers briefly.

"She'll need 'em," was the laconic answer.



CHAPTER X

THE BANK PUTS ON THE SCREWS

In the initial excitement it had seemed a simple matter to apprehend the murderer of Mormon Joe with such clues as were furnished by the axe, the rope, the shotgun and the button, which were found in the snow beneath the window. But investigation showed that the axe and rope were no different from scores of other axes and ropes in Prouty, and it was soon recognized that the solution of the case hinged upon the ownership of the gun and the finding of a motive for this peculiarly cowardly and ingenious murder.

But no one could be found to identify the gun, nor could any amount of inquiry unearth an enemy with a grudge sufficiently deep to inspire murder.

Although the room was packed to the doors, nothing startling was anticipated from the coroner's inquest; and while Kate had been summoned as a witness it was not expected that much would be learned from her testimony. The crowd was concerned chiefly in seeing "how she was taking it."

But curiosity became suspicion and suspicion conviction, when Kate, as white as the alabastine wall behind her, admitted that she and Mormon Joe had quarreled the night before the murder, and over money; that she knew how to set a trap-gun and had set them frequently for mountain lions; that she could ride forty miles in a few hours if necessary. The sensation came, however, when the coroner revealed the fact that under the dead man's will she was the sole beneficiary. Her denial of any knowledge of this was received incredulously, and her emphatic declaration that she had never before seen the shotgun carried no conviction.

The coroner and jury, after deliberation, decided that there was not sufficient evidence to hold her, but the real argument which freed her was the cost to the taxpayers of convening a Grand Jury, and the subsequent proceedings, if the jury decided to try her.

Kate would as well have been proven guilty and convicted, for all the difference the verdict of the coroner's jury made in the staring crowd that parted to let her pass as she came from the inquest. She had untied her horse with the unseeing eyes of a sleep-walker and was about to put her foot in the stirrup when Lingle came up to her.

"I'm goin' to do all I can to clear you," he said, earnestly, "and I got the mayor behind me. He said he'd use every resource of his office to get this murderer. I believe in you—and don't you forget it!"

She had not been able to speak, but the look in her eyes had thanked him.

Two days later, Kate was disinfecting the wound of a sheep that an untrained dog had injured when a note from the Security State Bank was handed her by one of Neifkins' herders. It was signed by its President, Mr. Vernon Wentz, late of the White Hand Laundry, and there was something which filled her with forebodings in the curt request for an immediate interview.

It was too late to start for Prouty that day, but she would leave early in the morning, so she went on applying a solution of permanganate of potassium to the wound and sprinkling it with a healing powder while she conjectured as to what Wentz might want of her.

In her usual work Kate found an outlet for the nervous tension under which she was still laboring. It helped a little, though it seemed impossible to believe that she ever again would be serene of mind and able to think clearly. Her thoughts were a jumble; as yet she could only feel and suffer terribly. Remorse took precedence over all other emotions, over the sense of loneliness and loss, over the appalling accusation. Her writhing conscience was never quiet. She would gladly have exchanged every hope of the future she dared harbor for five minutes of the dead man's life in which to beg forgiveness.

In the short interval since the coroner's inquest public opinion had crystallized in Prouty, and Kate's guilt was now a certainty in the minds of its citizens.

"She done it, all right, only they can't prove it on her." Hiram Butefish merely echoed the opinion of the community when he made the assertion, upon seeing Kate turn the corner by the Prouty House and ride down the main street the day following the delivery of Mr. Wentz's summons.

Suffering had made Kate acutely sensitive and she was quick to feel the atmosphere of hostility. She read it in the countenances of the passersby on the sidewalk, in the cold eyes staring at her from the windows, in the bank president's uncompromising attitude, even in the cashier's supercilious inventory as he looked her over.

Kate had entered the wide swinging doors of the bank simultaneously with Mr. Abram Pantin, at whom Mr. Wentz had waved a long white hand and requested him languidly to be seated. Since he already had motioned Kate to the only chair beside the one he himself occupied in his enclosure, it was clear there was no way for Mr. Pantin to accept the invitation unless he sat on the floor. It chafed Pantin exceedingly to be patronized by one who so recently had done his laundry, but since his business at the bank was of an imperative nature he concealed his annoyance with the best grace possible and waited.

Temporarily, at least, Mr. Wentz had lost his equilibrium. From washing the town's soiled linen to loaning it money was a change so sudden and radical that the rise made him dizzy; he was apt, therefore, to be a little erratic, his manner varying during a single conversation from the cold austerity of a bloodless capitalist to the free and easy democracy of the days when he had stood in the doorway of his laundry in his undershirt and "joshed" the passersby.

Mr. Wentz had a notion, fostered by his wife, that he was rather a handsome fellow. True, years of steaming had given to his complexion a look not unlike that of an evaporated apple, but this small defect was more than offset by a luxuriant brown mustache which he had trained carefully. His hair was sleek and neatly trimmed, and he used his brown eyes effectively upon occasions. His long hands with their supple fingers were markedly white, also from the steaming process. Being tall and of approximately correct proportions, his ready-made clothes fitted him excellently—as a matter of fact, Vernon Wentz would have passed for a "gent" anywhere.

Not unmindful of the presence of Mr. Pantin, of whom he secretly stood in awe, although he knew of his own knowledge that Pantin sheared his collars, Wentz swung about in his office chair and said abruptly:

"Didn't expect I'd have to send for you."

Kate's troubled eyes were fixed upon him.

"I had nothing to come for."

It pleased Mr. Wentz to regard her with a smile of tolerant amusement.

"Don't know anything about finance, do you?"

"I've never had any business to attend to. I will learn, though."

Wentz smiled enigmatically. Then, brusquely:

"We might as well come to the point and have it over—do you know them sheep's mortgaged?"

"I knew," hesitatingly, "that Uncle Joe had borrowed for our expenses, but I didn't know how he did it."

"That's how he did it," curtly. "And the mortgage includes the leases and the whole bloomin' outfit."

"But he only borrowed a few hundred," she ventured.

"We require ample security," importantly.

"What is it you want of me?" Kate's voice trembled slightly. The import of the interview was beginning to dawn upon her.

Wentz cleared his throat and announced impressively:

"There was a meeting of the directors called yesterday and it was decided that the bank must have its money."

She cried aghast:

"I haven't it, Mr. Wentz!"

"Then there's only one alternative."

"You mean ship the sheep?"

Wentz stroked his mustache.

"That's about the size of it."

"But sheep are way down," she protested. "It would take almost the two bands at present to pay off the debt and shipping expenses."

"That's not our funeral."

"And the leases are of no value without stock for them."

Mr. Wentz lowered his silken lashes and suggested smoothly as he continued to caress the treasured growth gently:

"Neifkins might be induced to take the leases off your hands at a nominal figure."

Mr. Pantin cooling his heels at the outer portals smiled. He knew what Kate did not—that Neifkins was one of the directors.

"But the notes are not due until early next summer—after shearing. Uncle Joe told me so."

"True," he assented. Then with a large air of erudition: "The law, however, provides for such cases as this. When the security of the mortgager is in jeopardy through incompetence or other causes he can foreclose immediately."

Kate paled as she listened.

"But there's no danger, Mr. Wentz," she protested breathlessly. "Your money's as safe as when Uncle Joe was living. I understand sheep—he said I was a better sheepman than he was because I had more patience and like them. I'll watch them closer than ever—day or night I'll never leave them. I'll promise you! I've got a good herder now and between us we can handle them."

Mr. Wentz shrugged a skeptical shoulder.

"You couldn't convince the directors of that. There's none of 'em wants to risk the bank's money with a woman in that kind of business."

"But can't you see," she pleaded, "that it's ruin to ship now? It will wipe me out completely. Put some one out there of your own choosing, if you can't trust me, but don't make me sell with the bottom out of the market!"

"You've got the bank's decision," he responded, coldly.

"Please—please reconsider! Just give me a chance—you won't be sorry! I only know sheep—I've never had the opportunity to learn anything else, and I've no place to go but that little homestead back in the hills. I've no one in the world to turn to. Won't you give me a trial, and then if you see I can't handle it—"

"It's no use arguin'." Wentz brought both hands down on the arms of the chair in impatient finality. "We're goin' to ship as soon as we can get cars and drive to the railroad, so you might as well turn them sheep over and stop hollerin'."

Kate rose and took a step forward, her hands outstretched in entreaty:

"Once more I ask you—give me a little time—I'll try and raise the money somewhere—ten days—give me ten days—I beg of you!"

"Ten years or ten days or ten minutes—'twould be all the same," his voice was raucous as he, too, stood up. He looked at her contemptuously. "No; it's settled. The bank's goin' to take over them sheep, and if there's anything left after the mortgage is satisfied you'll get it." He indicated that the interview was over. "Step in, Pantin."

For the second time within the week Kate went out in the street stunned by the blow which had been dealt her: She stood uncertainly for a moment on the edge of the sidewalk and then began slowly to untie the bridle reins.

"Here's a message that came for you yesterday; we had no way of getting it to you." The girl from the telephone office was regarding her curiously.

Kate turned at the sound of a voice beside her, and took the message which had been telephoned from the nearest telegraph office.

Have just learned of your trouble. Is there anything I can do for you? All sympathy.

HUGH

She read it twice, carefully, while her eyes filled with tears of longing, then she accompanied the girl to the telephone office where she wrote her answer.

I need nothing. Thank you.

KATE PRENTICE

In the meantime Mrs. Toomey was becoming acquainted with a new phase of her husband's character. She had thought she was familiar with all sides of it, those for which she loved him and those which taxed her patience and loyalty; but this moroseness, this brooding ugliness, was different.

He smoked continuously, ate little, drank more coffee than ever she had known him to, and at night twisted and turned restlessly. She could not account for it, since, so far as she knew, there was no more to trouble him than the usual worry as to where their next meals were coming from.

She surreptitiously studied his face wearing this new expression, and asked herself what would become of him with his violent temper, illogical reasoning and lack of balance, if it were not for the restraint of their association? Daily he became a stronger convert to the doctrine that the world owed every one—himself in particular—a living. It was one Mrs. Toomey did not hold with.

She was thankful now that she had not told him of Kate and her promise and aroused hopes that would only have meant further disappointment, in view of developments. She knew, of course, the current gossip to the effect that the Security State Bank was about to foreclose and "set Kate afoot," as the phrase was.

Mrs. Toomey was truly sorry. Her liking for Kate was more genuine than any feeling of the kind she had had for another woman in a longer time than she could remember. Because, perhaps, the girl was so strikingly her opposite in every particular, she admired Kate exceedingly. The freshness of her candid friendly face, her general wholesomeness attracted her. She felt also the latent strength of character beneath the ingenuous surface, and the girl's courage and self-reliance drew her in her own trembling uncertainty at this period, like a magnet.

Mrs. Toomey's impulses were more often kind than otherwise, and she would have liked nothing better than to have gone to Kate in this crisis, for she believed thoroughly in Kate's innocence and guessed how much she needed a woman's friendship. Mrs. Toomey had a rather active conscience and it troubled her.

Naturally, she had not forgotten the "handshake agreement" which was to cement their friendship, but she argued that as Kate had not been able to fulfill her share of it she could not be expected to live up to her end, since it would mean opposition from Jap and no benefit to offset it. But in her heart Mrs. Toomey knew that it was not Jap she feared so much as the disapproval of Mrs. Abram Pantin.

Toomey was brooding as usual, when footsteps were heard on the wooden sidewalk and a sharp rap followed.

Mrs. Toomey was kneading bread on the kitchen table. Toomey had sold a pair of silver sugar tongs to a cowpuncher who opined that they were the very thing he had been looking for with which to eat oysters. The slipperiness of a raw oyster annoyed and embarrassed him, so he purchased the tongs gladly, and the sack of flour which resulted gave Mrs. Toomey a feeling of comparative security while it lasted.

She called through the doorway:

"You go, Jap. I'm busy."

He arose mechanically, opened the door, started back, then stepped out and closed it after him. At the kitchen table Mrs. Toomey saw the pantomime and was curious.

The sound of voices raised in altercation followed. She recognized that of Teeters.

"I tell you it is, Toomey! I'll swear to it! I'd know it anywhere because of that peculiarity!"

She could not catch the words of a second speaker, but the tone was equally aggressive and unfriendly.

"Then prove it!" Toomey's voice was shrill with excitement and defiant.

They all lowered their voices abruptly as though they had been admonished, but the tones reached her, alternately threatening, argumentative, even pleading.

What in the world was it all about, she wondered as she kneaded.

For twenty minutes or more it lasted, and then Teeters' voice came clearly, vibrating with contempt as well as purpose:

"You got a yellow streak a yard wide and if it takes the rest of our natural life Lingle and me between us are goin' to prove it!"

Toomey's answer was a jeering laugh of defiance, but when he came in and slammed the door behind him, she saw that his face was a sickly yellow and his shaking hand spilled the tobacco which he tried to pour upon a cigarette paper.

She waited a moment for an explanation but, since it was not forthcoming, asked anxiously:

"What's the matter, Jap?"

He did not hear her.

She persisted:

"Who was it?"

"Teeters and Lingle."

"The deputy sheriff?"

He nodded.

She came a little further into the room with her flour-covered hands.

"What did they want, Jap, that's so upset you?"

"I'm not upset!" He glared at her. His trembling hand could not touch the match to the cigarette paper.

"It's only right that you should tell me," she said firmly.

His eyes wavered.

"It's about the cook stove; Teeters wants to foreclose the mortgage."

She regarded him fixedly, turned, and started for the kitchen. She knew that he was lying.



CHAPTER XI

KATE KEEPS HER PROMISE

One of the things which Mrs. Abram Pantin's worst enemy would have had to admit in her favor was that, strictly speaking, she was not a gossip, though this virtue was due as much to policy as to principle. It was her custom, however, to retain in her memory such morsels of common knowledge news as she accumulated during the day with which to entertain Mr. Pantin at evening dinner, for she observed that if his thoughts could be diverted from business it aided his digestion and he slept better, so she strove always to have some bright topic to introduce at the table.

Having said a silent grace, Mr. Pantin inquired mechanically:

"Will you have a chop, Prissy?" Since there were only two he did not use the plural.

Mrs. Pantin looked across the fern centerpiece and made a mouth as she regarded the chop doubtfully.

"I'm afraid I am eating too much meat lately."

Impaled on a tine of the fork, the chop was of a thinness to have enabled one to read through it without much difficulty.

Mr. Pantin placed the chop on his own plate with some little alacrity.

As his wife took one of the two dainty rolls concealed in a fringed napkin on the handsome silver bread tray, she endeavored to recall what it was in particular that she had saved to tell him. Oh, yes!

"What do you think I heard to-day, Abram?"

Abram was figuring interest and murmured absently:

"I have no idea."

"They say," in her sprightliest manner, "that that girl who killed her lover was refused credit at every store in Prouty. No one would trust her for even five dollars' worth of groceries. Rather pathetic, isn't it?"

Mr. Pantin looked up quickly.

"Who told you that?"

"Everyone seems to know it."

Mr. Pantin frowned slightly.

"If you mean Miss Prentice, I wouldn't speak of her in that fashion, Priscilla."