her saddle. But she struck his hand away.

"I shall not take the money. I shall pay for the schoolhouse, Mr.
Lorrigan. Unless I can pay for it I shall never teach school there
another day!" Her voice shook with nervous tension. One did not
lightly and unthinkingly measure wills with Tom Lorrigan.

"That's your business, whether you teach school or not," said Tom,
holding the bag as though he still meant to tie it on the saddle.

"But if I don't they will hire another teacher, and that will drive me
away from home to earn money--" Mary Hope had not in the least
intended to say that, which might be interpreted as a bid for
sympathy.

"Well, Belle, she says no strange woman can use that schoolhouse.
They might not find anything to teach school in, if they tried that."

"You've got to keep that money." Mary Hope turned the Roman-nosed
horse half away, meaning to leave Tom there with the money in his
hand.

Tom reached calmly out and caught the horse by the bridle.

"I want to tell you something," he drawled, in the voice which she had
heard when she came up. "I haven't _'got'_ to do anything. But I tell
you what I _will_ do. If you don't take this money back and go ahead
with your school-teaching as if nothing had happened, I'll burn that
schoolhouse to the last chip in the yard. And this money I'll take and
throw down that crevice under the Tooth, up there. The money won't do
nobody any good, and the schoolhouse won't be nothing at all but a
black spot. You can suit yourself--it's up to you."

Mary Hope looked at him, opened her lips to defy him, and instead gave
a small sob. Her Scotch blood chilled at the threat of such wanton
destruction of property and money, but it was not that which made her
afraid at that moment of Tom Lorrigan,--held her silent, glaring
impotently.

She trembled while he tied the money to the saddle fork again, using a
knot she had never seen tied before. She wanted to tell him how much
she hated him, how much she hated the whole Lorrigan family, how she
would die before she ever entered the door of that schoolhouse again
unless it was paid for and she could be free of obligation to him.

But when his head was bent, hiding all of his face but the chin, she
had a wild fleeting notion that he was Lance, and that he would lift
his head and smile at her. Yet when he lifted his head he was just Tom
Lorrigan, with a hardness in his face which Lance did not have, and a
glint in his eye that t