ch one of the boys must have led home, and tied it to a
post. From the chuck-wagon, standing just where Riley had driven it to
a vacant spot beside the woodpile, Lance purloined a can of pork and
beans, a loaf of bread, and some butter. These things he put in a
bag.

For a minute he stood scowling at the silent house, undecided,
wondering just how soundly Belle was sleeping. He was not afraid of
Belle; no real Lorrigan was ever afraid of anything, as fear is
usually defined. But he wanted to postpone for a time her reckoning
with him. He wanted to face her when he had a free mind, when she had
slept well, when her temper was not so edgy. He wanted other things,
however, and he proceeded to get those things with the least effort
and delay.

He wanted soft cloths. On the clothesline dangled three undershirts,
three pair of drawers and several mismated socks. The shirts and
drawers were of the kind known as fleece-lined--which means that they
are fuzzy on the inside. They were Riley's complete wardrobe so far as
underwear went, but Lance did not trouble himself with unimportant
details. He took them all, because he had a swift mental picture of
the schoolhouse floor which would need much scrubbing before it would
be clean.

He was ready to mount and ride away when he remembered something else
that he would need. "Lye!" he muttered, and retraced his steps to the
house. Now he must go into the kitchen shed for what he wanted, and
Riley slept in a little room next the shed. But Riley was snoring
with a perfect rhythm that bespoke a body sunk deep in slumber, so
Lance searched until he found what he wanted, and added a full box of
a much-advertised washing powder for good measure. He was fairly well
burdened when he finally started up the trail again, but he believed
that he had everything that he would need, even a lump of putty, and a
pane of glass which he had carefully removed from a window of the
chicken house, and which he hoped would fit.

You may think that he rode gladly upon his errand; that the thought of
Mary Hope turned the work before him into a labor of love. It did not.
Lance Lorrigan was the glummest young man in the whole Black Rim, and
there was much glumness amongst the Rim folk that day, let me tell
you. He ached from fighting, from dancing, from sleeping on the pool
table, from hanging for hours to those darned pintos. His left hand
was swollen, and pains from the knuckle streaked like hot wires to h