he motioned to a sofa.

Sitting down beside him so that they were very close together and giving
the archest of smiles, she said:

"I wonder if I might ask you a question."

"Why, sure," said Jim, just a little uneasy at the warmth of the tone.
He had instincts, if not experience.

"Were you ever in love?" she said softly. Her arm, resting on the back
of the sofa, moved accidentally and lay across his shoulder.

"Why, no--I--no--I guess not," and Hartigan turned red and
uncomfortable.

"I wish you would let me be your friend," she continued. "I do like you
very much, you know. I want to be your friend and I can help you in so
many ways."

She leaned toward him, and Jim, being more terrified than he had ever
been, murmured something inarticulate about "not being a lady's man."
What he would have done to effect his escape he was never afterward able
to decide. A spell of helplessness was upon him, when suddenly a heavy
step was heard outside and Pa Hoomer's voice calling:

"Ma, Ma! Who's left that corral gate open?"

Lou-Jane sprang up, shook her bright hair from her flushed face, and
with a hasty apology went to meet her father. The Preacher also rose
with inexpressible relief, and, after a hurried farewell, he mounted and
rode away.

CHAPTER XVIII

The Second Bylow Spree

Woman to-day reverences physical prowess just as much as did her cave
forebears, and she glories in the fact that her man is a strong,
fighting animal, even though she recognizes the value of other gifts.

Belle was no exception to this human rule; and her eyes sparkled as she
listened to Jim's story of that unusual prayer meeting held in the Bylow
cabin. It was Hartigan's nature always to see the humorous side of
things, and his racy description of the big man with the knife, down on
his knees with one eye on the door and the other on the Preacher, was
irresistible, much funnier than the real thing. It gave her a genuine
thrill, a woman's pleasure in his splendid physical strength.

"Sure," he said with his faint delicious brogue, "it was distasteful to
have to annoy them, but there are times when one has to do what he
doesn't like."

Then he proceeded to a graphic account of the second ruffian smelling
the palms of his hands and squinting through his fingers, praying for
grace with his lips and for a club with his heart.

"I don't know what Dr. Jebb will say," she remarked at last, "but it
seems to me we must judge by res