t kind
of stuff. I was tickled about the piano, though. The schoolma'am was
game. She offered to give us back our two dollars per, but of course
nobody was piker enough to take her up on it. We went ahead and had
the dance with harmonicas and a fiddle, and made out all right. Looks
to me like the schoolma'am's all to the good. She's got the dance
money--"

It was of no use. Lance found he could not listen to that man talking
about Mary Hope. To strike the man on his fish-like, hard-lipped mouth
would only make matters worse, so he once more left the compartment
and stood in the open doorway of the vestibule just beyond. The train,
slowing to a stop at a tank station, jarred to a standstill. In the
compartment behind him the man's voice sounded loud and raucous now
that the mechanical noises had ceased.

"Well, I never knew it to fail--what's in the blood will come out.
They've lived there for three generations now. They're killers,
thieves at heart--human birds of prey, and it don't matter if it is
all under the surface. I say it's _there_."

At that moment, Lance had the hunger to kill, to stop forever the
harsh voice that talked on and on of the Lorrigans and their ingrained
badness. He stepped outside, slamming the door shut behind him. The
voice, fainter now, could still be heard. He swung down to the
cinders, stood there staring ahead at the long train, counting the
cars, watching the fireman run with his oil can and climb into the
engine cab. He could no longer hear the voice, but he felt that he
must forget it or go back and kill the man who owned it.

In the car ahead a little girl leaned out of the window, her curls
whipping across her face. Jubilantly she waved her hand at him,
shrilled a sweet, "Hello-oh. Where _you_ goin'? I'm goin' to my
grandma's house!"

The rigor left Lance's jaw. He smiled, showing his teeth, saw that a
brakeman was down inspecting a hot box on the forward truck of that
car, and walked along to the window where the little girl leaned and
waited, waving two sticky hands at him to hurry.

"Hello, baby. I know a grandma that's going to be mighty happy, before
long," he said, standing just under the window and looking up at her.

"D'you know my gran'ma? S'e lives in a green house an' s'e's got
five--hundred baby kittens for me to see! An' I'm goin' to bring one
home wis me--but I _do'no_ which one. D'you like yellow kittens, or
litty gray kittens, or black ones?"

Gravely Lance s