med to expect.
But for all that the distrust never quite left his eyes, and there were
times like this when he was absolutely oblivious to her presence.

Billy Louise suddenly lost patience. She stooped and picked up a bit
of bark the size of her thumb and threw it at Ward, with a little,
vexed twist of her lips. She had a fine accuracy of aim--she hit him
on the nape of the neck, just where his hair came down in a queer
little curly "cow-lick" in the middle.

Ward jumped up and whirled, and when he faced Billy Louise he had a gun
gripped in the fingers that had held the cigarette so loosely. In his
eyes was the glare which a man turns upon his deadliest enemy, perhaps,
but seldom indeed upon a girl. So they faced each other, while Billy
Louise backed against the wall and took two sharp breaths.

Ward relaxed; a shamed flush reddened his whole face. He shoved the
gun back inside the belt of his trousers--Billy Louise had never
dreamed that he carried any weapon save his haughty aloofness of
manner--and with a little snort of self-disgust dropped back into the
chair. He did not stare again into the fire, however; he folded his
arms upon the high chairback and laid his face down upon them, like a
woman who is hurt to the point of tears and yet will not weep. His
booted feet were thrust toward the dying coals, his whole attitude
spoke of utter desolation--of a loneliness beyond words.

Billy Louise set her teeth hard together to keep back the tears of
sympathy. Suffering of any sort always wrung the tender heart of her.
But suffering like this--never in her life had she seen anything like
it. She had seen her father angry, discouraged, morose. She had seen
men fight. She had soothed her mother's grief, which expressed itself
in tears and lamentations. But this hidden hurt, this stoical
suffering that she had seen often and often in Ward's eyes and that
sent his head down now upon his arms-- She went to him and laid her
two hands on his shoulders without even thinking that this was the
first time she had ever touched him.

"Don't!" she said, half whispering so that she would not waken her
mother, in bed with an attack of lumbago. "I--I didn't know. Ward,
listen to me! Whatever it is, can't you tell me? You--I'm your
friend. Don't look as if you--you hadn't a friend on earth!"

Still he did not move or give any sign that he heard. Billy Louise had
no thought of coquetry. Her heart ached with pity an