for the
schoolhouse--approximately, since she had only a vague idea of
the cost of the building--and then be quit of the Lorrigan
patronage forever.

It happened that she found Tom at home and evidently in a temper not
much milder than her father's. Two of the Devil's Tooth men were at
the stable door when she rode up, and to them Tom was talking in a
voice that sent shivers over Mary Hope when she heard it. Not loud and
declamatory, like her father's, but with a certain implacable calm
that was harder to face than stormy vituperation.

But she faced it, now that she was there and Tom had been warned of
her coming by Coaley, who pointed his ears forward inquiringly when
she neared the stable. The two cowpunchers gave Tom slanting glances
and left, muttering under their breaths to each other as they led
their sweaty horses into a farther corral.

Tom lifted his hand to his hat brim in mute recognition of her
presence, gave her a swift inquiring look and turned Coaley into the
stable with the saddle on. Mary Hope took one deep breath and,
fumbling at a heavy little bag tied beside the fork of her saddle,
plunged straight into her subject.

"I've brought the money I raised at the dance, Mr. Lorrigan," she
said. "Since you refused to take it for the piano, I have brought it
to pay you for the schoolhouse--with Mr. Boyle's approval. I have
three hundred and twelve dollars. If that is not enough, I will pay
you the balance later." She felt secretly rather well satisfied with
the speech, which went even better than her rehearsals of it on the
way over.

Then, having untied the bag, she looked up, and her satisfaction
slumped abruptly into perturbation. Tom was leaning back against the
corral rails, with his arms folded--and just _why_ must he lift his
eyebrows and smile like Lance? She was going to hand him the bag, but
her fingers bungled and she dropped it in the six-inch dust of the
trail.

Tom unfolded his arms, moved forward a pace, picked up the bag and
offered it to her. "You've got the buying fever, looks like to me," he
observed coldly. "I haven't got any schoolhouse to sell."

"But you have! You built it, and--"

"I did build a shack up on the hill, awhile back," Tom admitted in the
same deliberate tone, "but I turned it over to Jim Boyle and the Swede
and whoever else wanted to send their kids there to school." Since
Mary Hope refused to put out her hand for the bag, Tom began very
calmly to retie it on