summer--if you wish her to do so."

She was glad of this message and added: "I need her, sure thing. Every
day I spend here makes me seem like Mary Ann--I don't see how people can
talk as smooth as they do. I'm crazy to get to school again and make up
for lost time. Joe Moss makes me feel like a lead quarter. Being here
with all these nice people and not able to talk with them is no fun.
Couldn't I whirl in and go to school somewhere back here?"

"Oh no, that isn't necessary. You are getting your education by
association--you are improving very fast."

Her face lighted up. "Am I? Do you mean it?"

"I do mean it. No one would know--to see you here--that you had not
enjoyed all the advantages."

"Oh yes, but I'm such a bluff. When I open my mouth they all begin to
grin. They're onto my game all right."

He smiled. "That's because of your picturesque phrases--they like to
hear you speak. I assure you no one would think of calling you awkward
or--or lacking in--in charm."

Haney's return cut short this defensive dialogue, and with a sense of
relief Bertha retreated--almost fled to her room--leaving the two men to
discuss their business.

At the moment she had no wish to participate in a labor controversy. She
was entirely the woman at last, roused to the overpowering value of her
own inheritance. Her desire to manage, to calculate, to plan her
husband's affairs was gone, and in its place was a willingness to
submit, a wish for protection which she had not hitherto acknowledged.
She brooded for a time on Ben's words, then hurriedly began to
dress--with illogical desire to make herself beautiful in his eyes. As
she re-entered the room she caught Haney's repeated declaration--"I will
be loyal to the men"--and Ben's reply.

"Very well, I'll go back and do the best I can to keep them in line, but
Williams says the governor is entirely on the side of the
mine-operators."

"Does he?" retorted Haney. "Well, you say to the governor that Mart
Haney was a gambler and saloon-keeper during the other 'war,' and now
that he's a mine-owner, with money to hire a regiment of deppyties, his
heart is with the red-neckers--just where it was. Owning a paying mine
has not changed me heart to a stone."

Ben, as well as Bertha, understood the pride he took in not whiffling
with the shift of wind, but at the same time he considered it a foolish
kind of loyalty. "Very well, I'll take the six-o'clock train to-night in
order to be on hand