e to come alone. Bat Lewis goes on duty as the relief,
about nine o'clock. I mean to beat him to it, and if the Sheriff opens
up for me I'll be away with Santry before Bat appears. But I must get
some sleep, Lem."

The two men arose.

"Well, good luck to you, Gordon." Trowbridge slapped his friend on the
shoulder, and they separated.

"Frank, can you let me have a bed?" Wade asked of the hotel proprietor,
a freckled Irishman.

"Sure; as many as you want."

"One will do, Frank; and another thing," the ranchman said guardedly.
"I'll need an extra horse to-night, and I don't want to be seen with him
until I need him. Can you have him tied behind the school-house a little
before nine o'clock?"

"You bet I can!" The Irishman slowly dropped an eyelid, for the
school-house was close by the jail.

Wade tumbled into the bed provided for him and slept like a log, having
that happy faculty of the healthy man, of being able to sleep when his
body needed it, no matter what impended against the hour of awakening.

When he did wake up, the afternoon was well advanced, and after another
hearty meal he walked over to the Purnells' to pass the time until it
was late enough for him to get to work.

"Now, Gordon will tell you I'm right," Mrs. Purnell proclaimed
triumphantly, when the young man entered the cottage. "I want Dorothy to
go with me to call on Miss Rexhill, and she doesn't want to go. The
idea! When Miss Rexhill was nice enough to call on us first."

Mrs. Purnell set much store upon her manners, as the little Michigan
town where she was born understood good breeding, and she had not been
at all annoyed by Helen Rexhill's patronage, which had so displeased
Wade. To her mind the Rexhills were very great people, and great people
were to be expected to bear themselves in lofty fashion. Dorothy had
inherited her democracy from her father and not from her mother, who,
indeed, would have been disappointed if Helen Rexhill appeared any less
than the exalted personage she imagined herself to be.

"Oh, I'd like to meet her well enough, only...." Dorothy stopped,
unwilling to say before Wade that she did not consider the Rexhills
sufficiently good friends of his, in the light of recent developments,
for them to be friends of hers.

"Of course, go," he broke in heartily. "She's not responsible for what
her father does in the way of business, and I reckon she'd think it
funny if you didn't call."

"There now!" Mrs. Purnell e