w both--it bein' too ridiculous fo' me to
aspiah that high. An' so here looked to me like a substitute, gentlemen,
that ought to satisfy all concerned." His eye turned to madame but lost
courage and escaped back to Hugh.

"Now, Mr. Hugh, I've got money a-plenty. It's all I have got excep'
maybe a good tempeh, an' I'm goin' back to the diggin's anyhow; one man
to the squa' mile is too crowded fo' me. Meantime, madam"--he turned
again and this time he was invincible, although madame straightened and
sparkled and Ramsey gave a staring attention, having throughout all her
pilot-house talk heard everything----"Meantime, madam, with a priest
right here on boa'd, if I can buy, at any price, Phyllis's free
papehs----"

"You can't!" chanted Ramsey. "She can have 'em for nothing but nobody
can buy 'em."

"Pries'?" asked madame, "an' free pape'! W'at you pro-ose do with those
pries' an' free pape'?"

"I'll marry her; marry her an' take her to whah a woman's a woman fo' a'
that an' can clean house aw cook dinneh whilst I gatheh the honeycomb
bright as gold and drive the wolf to his secret hold." He cast around
the group a glance of bright inquiry, but except old Joy every one
silently looked at every one else. The old woman softly closed her eyes
and shook her head.

"Vote!" cried Ramsey, remembering Sunday's victory. "Let's vote on it!"

LV

LOVE MAKES A CUT-OFF

But the grandfather addressed the adventurer. "You'd rather not, I
fancy."

"Rather not; looks too unanimous the wrong way."

"Would you still like to have Hugh's advice?"

"I would! I'd like to hear yo'-all's argument."

Ramsey dropped into her chair with a tired sigh and up-stream gaze
though with an inner ear of keenest attention.

Hugh glanced toward his father's door, whence at any moment, as every
one realized, the actor might beckon.

"I have no argument," he began.

"You have," breathed a voice, unmistakably Ramsey's; "you always have."

"You know," he continued to the Kentuckian, "there's something in all of
us, I don't say what, or whether wise or foolish, that says: 'Don't do
it.' You feel it, don't you?"

Madame interrupted: "_Mais_ don't do w'at?"

Ramsey faced the group as if to answer just that question. "Now we pass
between Cedar Point and Pecan Point and head for the Second Chickasaw
Bluffs!"

"Ah bah, _les_ bloff'," murmured madame and repeated to Hugh: "Something
say, 'Don' do it'? _Mais_ w'at it say don' do?"

"Don't