I low you kin take it out in wantin'. Think she got time to fool
away on a nigger sprout like you-all? Light a shuck back to the stable,
where you belong."

'Rastus grinned amiably, flung himself at a door, and vanished into that
part of the house which was forbidden territory to him, the while Becky
stared after him in amazement.

"What in tarnation got in dat nigger child?" she gasped.

Phyllis, having arranged the mail and delivered most of it, had left the
store in charge of the clerk and retired to her private den, a cool room
finished in restful tints at the northeast corner of the house. She was
sitting by a window reading a magazine, when there came a knock. Her
"Come in" disclosed 'Rastus and the whites of his rolling eyes.

She nodded and smiled. "What can I do for you, George Washington Abraham
Lincoln Randolph?"

"I done come to tell you somepin I heerd whilst I was asleep in de live
oak at the corral."

"Something you dreamed. It is very good of you, George Wash----"

"Now, don't you call me all dat again, Miss Phyl. And I didn't dream it
nerrer. I woke up and heerd it. Mr. Jim Yeager and dat nester they call
Keller wuz a-talkin', and Mr. Jim he allowed dat Keller wuz a rustler,
and den Keller he allowed dat Mr. Phil wuz de rustler."

"What!" The girl had sprung to her feet, amazed, her dark eyes blazing
indignation.

"Tha's what he said. He went on to tell how he done found a knife by the
dead cow, an' 'twuz yore knife, an' you done loan it to Mr. Phil."

"He said that!" She was a creature transformed by passion. The hot blood
of Southern ancestors raced through her veins clamorously. She wanted to
strike down this man, to annihilate him and the cowardly lie he had
given to shield himself. And pat to her need came the very person she
could best use for her instrument.

Healy stood surprised in the doorway, confronted by the slender young
amazon. The storm of passion in the eyes, the underlying flush in the
dusky cheeks, indicated a new mood in his experience of this young
woman of many moods.

"Come in and shut the door," she ordered. Then, "Tell him, 'Rastus."

The boy, all smiles gone now, repeated his story, and was excused.

"What do you think of that, Brill?" the girl demanded, after the door
had closed on him.

The stockman's eyes had grown hard. "I think Keller's covering his own
tracks. Of course we've got no direct proof, but----"

"We have," she broke in.

"I can't see it. Ac