enly eager to have him go or that she
almost ran across to the table under the light with the packet of
papers as he turned away.

Had he noticed he would have been better prepared the next night for
the scene that met him when he opened her door at dusk. One step was
all he took, and then he stopped, wide-eyed, aghast. Dryad was
standing in the middle of the room, her hair loose about her
shoulders, lips drawn dangerously back from tight little teeth, fists
clenched at her throat, and her eyes flaming.

Old Jerry had never before seen her in a rage; he had never before
seen anybody so terribly, pallidly violent. As he entered her eyes
shot up to his. He heard her breath come and go, come and go, between
dry lips. And suddenly she lifted her feet and stamped upon the
newspaper strewn about her on the floor--infinitesimal shreds which
she had torn and flung from her.

"It's a lie!" she gasped. "It's a lie--a lie! They said he couldn't
win anyway; they said he had sold--sold his chance to win--and they
lie! He's never been whipped. He's never--been--whipped--yet!"

It frightened him. The very straining of her throat and the mad rise
and fall of her breast made him afraid for her. In his effort to quiet
her he hardly reckoned what he was saying.

"Why, it--it don't mean nothin'," he stated mildly. "That newspaper
trash ain't no account, anyway you look at it."

"Then why do they print it?" she stormed. "How do they dare to print
it? They've been doing it for days--weeks!"

He felt more equal to that question. The answer fairly popped into his
brain.

"They hev to, I reckon," he said with a fine semblance of cheerfulness.
"If they didn't maybe everybody'd be so sure he'd win that they
wouldn't even bother to go to see it." And then, very carelessly, as
though it was of little importance: "Don't know's I would hev thought
of goin' myself if it hadn't been for that. It's advertisin' I
reckon--just advertisin'!"

Her fists came down from her chin; her whole body relaxed. It was that
bewildering change of mood which he could never hope to follow. She
even started toward him.

"Wouldn't have thought of it!" she repeated. "Why--why, you don't mean
that you _aren't_ going?"

It was quite as though she had never considered the possibility of
such a contingency. Old Jerry's mouth dropped open while he stared at
her.

"Go," he stammered, "me go! Why, it's goin' to happen tomorrow
night!"

She nodded her head in app