recording. The excitement had preceded him, and
speculation was rife. He thought best to keep out of it. After dark he
stole up to Longstreth's ranch. The evening was warm; the doors were
open; and in the twilight the only lamps that had been lit were in
Longstreth's big sitting-room, at the far end of the house. When a
buckboard drove up and Longstreth and Lawson alighted, Duane was well
hidden in the bushes, so well screened that he could get but a fleeting
glimpse of Longstreth as he went in. For all Duane could see, he
appeared to be a calm and quiet man, intense beneath the surface, with
an air of dignity under insult. Duane's chance to observe Lawson was
lost. They went into the house without speaking and closed the door.

At the other end of the porch, close under a window, was an offset
between step and wall, and there in the shadow Duane hid. So Duane
waited there in the darkness with patience born of many hours of hiding.

Presently a lamp was lit; and Duane heard the swish of skirts.

"Something's happened surely, Ruth," he heard Miss Longstreth say,
anxiously. "Papa just met me in the hall and didn't speak. He seemed
pale, worried."

"Cousin Floyd looked like a thunder-cloud," said Ruth. "For once he
didn't try to kiss me. Something's happened. Well, Ray, this had been a
bad day."

"Oh, dear! Ruth, what can we do? These are wild men. Floyd makes life
miserable for me. And he teases you unmer--"

"I don't call it teasing. Floyd wants to spoon," declared Ruth,
emphatically. "He'd run after any woman."

"A fine compliment to me, Cousin Ruth," laughed Ray.

"I don't care," replied Ruth, stubbornly, "it's so. He's mushy. And when
he's been drinking and tries to kiss me--I hate him!"

There were steps on the hall floor.

"Hello, girls!" sounded out Lawson's voice, minus its usual gaiety.

"Floyd, what's the matter?" asked Ray, presently. "I never saw papa as
he is to-night, nor you so--so worried. Tell me, what has happened?"

"Well, Ray, we had a jar to-day," replied Lawson, with a blunt,
expressive laugh.

"Jar?" echoed both the girls, curiously.

"We had to submit to a damnable outrage," added Lawson, passionately,
as if the sound of his voice augmented his feeling. "Listen, girls; I'll
tell you-all about it." He coughed, cleared his throat in a way that
betrayed he had been drinking.

Duane sunk deeper into the shadow of his covert, and, stiffening his
muscles for a protected spell of rigidit