and Mandy herself,
who had been looking a bit terrified after her bold speaking, was
reassured.

Buckheath had been a week at the Himes boarding-house, finding it not
unpleasant to show Johnnie Consadine how many of the girls regarded him
with favour, whether she did or not, when he came to supper one evening
with a gleam in his eye that spoke evil for some one. After the meal was
over, he followed Pap out on the porch and sat down beside the old man,
the girls being bunched expectantly on the step, for he was apt to delay
for a bit of chat with one or another of them before leaving.

"You infernal old rascal, I've caught up with you," he whispered,
leaning close to his host.

Himes clutched the pipe in his teeth till it clicked, and stared in
helpless resentment at his mealer.

"What's the matter with you?" he demanded.

"Speak lower, so the gals won't hear you, or you'll wish you had,"
counselled Shade. "I sent that there thing on to Washington to get a
patent on it, and now I find that they was a model of the same there in
the name of Gideon Himes. What do you make of that?"

Pap stared at the thin strips of metal lying in Shade's hard, brown
palm.

"The little liar!" he breathed. "She told me she got it up herself." He
glared at the bits of steel with protruding eyes, and breathed hard.

"Well, she didn't," Shade countered swiftly, taking advantage of the
turn things were showing. "I made six of 'em; and when I told her to
bring 'em back and I'd give her some that would wear better, she only
brought me five. She said she'd lost one here at home, she believed. I
might have knowed then that you'd get your claws on it ef I wasn't
mighty peart."

Old Gideon was not listening; he had fallen into a brown study, turning
the piece of metal in his skilful, wonted, knotty fingers, with their
spade tips.

"Put it out of sight--quick--here she comes!" whispered Shade; and the
old man looked up to see Johnnie Consadine in the doorway. A grin of
triumph grew slowly upon his face, as he gazed from one to the other.

"She did get it up!" he returned in Buckheath's face. "You liar! You're
a-aimin' to steal it from her. You filed out the pieces like she told
you to, and when you found it would work, you tried to get a patent on
it for yo'se'f. Yes, sir, I'm onto _you!_"

Shade looked over his shoulder. The girls had forsaken the steps.
Despairing of his coming, they were strolling two-and-two after Johnnie
on the sid