bus, and she was quite open in her hatred. "If he ever comes
at me again, and nobody calls him off, I shall shoot him." It was not
a threat, as she spoke it, but a plain statement of a fact. "You'd
better serve notice too, Ward. He's a nasty beast, and he'd just as
soon kill a person as not. He was going to jump for my throat. He was
crouched, just ready to spring--and I had my gun out--when Marthy saw
us and gave a yell fit to wake the dead. Surbus didn't jump, and I
didn't shoot. That's how close he came to being a dead dog."

She glanced at Ward and then furtively at Charlie Fox. If expression
meant anything, Surbus was yet in danger of paying for that assault.
She caught Ward's truculent eye, smiled, and shook her head at him.
"We're pretty fair friends now," she said. "At least, we don't try to
kill each other whenever we meet. 'Armed neutrality' fits our case
fine."

"I think I'll volunteer under your flag," said Ward. "I'll leave
Cerberus alone as long as he leaves me and my friends alone. But I'd
advise him not to start anything."

"That's all Surbus or anyone else can ask. Come on, old fellow!
Pardon me," he added to his companions and rode past them to meet the
great, heavy-jowled dog. "Be still, Surbus. We're all friends, here."

The dog lifted a non-committal glance to Ward's face, growled deep in
his chest, and dropped behind, nosing the tracks of Blue and Rattler as
if he would identify them and fix them in his memory for future use.

Ward had never seen the Cove in summer. He looked about him curiously,
struck by the atmosphere of quiet plenty. Over the crude fence hung
fruit-laden branches from the jungle within. There was a smell of
ripening plums in the air, and the hum of bees. Somewhere in the
orchard a wild canary was singing. If he could live down here, he
thought, with Billy Louise and none other near, he would ask no odds of
the world or of heaven. He glanced at Charlie Fox enviously. Well, he
had a fairly well-sheltered place of his own, up there in the hills.
He could set out fruit and plants and things and have a little Eden of
his own; though of course it couldn't be like this place, sheltered as
it was from harsh winds by that high rock wall, and soaking in sunshine
all day long. Still, he could fix his place up a lot, with a little
time and thought and a good deal of hard work.

He looked at Billy Louise and saw how the beauty of the place appealed
to her, and