emed rather fond of that statement, he repeated it so
often." The life I live doesn't call for girls. Put that's neither here
nor there. What I wanted to say was, that I won't bother you any more. I
wouldn't have said a word to you tonight, if you hadn't walked right up
to me and started to dig into me. Of course, I had to fight back--the
man who won't isn't a normal human being."

"Oh, I know." Evadna's tone was resentful. "From Adam down to you, it
has always been 'The woman, she tempted me.' You're perfectly horrid,
even if you have apologized. 'The woman, she tempted me,' and--"

"I beg your pardon; the woman didn't," he corrected blandly. "The woman
insisted on scrapping. That's different."

"Oh, it's different! I see. I have almost forgotten something I ought
to say, Mr. Imsen. I must thank you for--well, for defending me to that
Indian."

"I didn't. Nobody was attacking you, so I couldn't very well defend you,
could I? I had to take a fall out of old Peppajee, just on principle. I
don't get along very well with my noble red cousins. I wasn't doing it
on your account, in particular."

"Oh, I see." She rose rather suddenly from the bench. "It wasn't even
common humanity, then--"

"Not even common humanity," he echoed affirmatively. "Just a chance I
couldn't afford to pass up, of digging into Peppajee."

"That's different." She laughed shortly and left him, running swiftly
through the warm dusk to the murmur of voices at the house.

Grant sat where she left him, and smoked two cigarettes meditatively
before he thought of returning to the house. When he finally did get
upon his feet, he stretched his arms high above his head, and stared for
a moment up at the treetops swaying languidly just under the stars.

"Girls must play the very deuce with a man if he ever lets them get on
his mind," he mused. "I see right now where a fellow about my size and
complexion had better watch out." But he smiled afterward, as if he did
not consider the matter very serious, after all.

CHAPTER VI. THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL PLAYS GHOST

At midnight, the Peaceful Hart ranch lay broodily quiet under its
rock-rimmed bluff. Down in the stable the saddle-horses were but
formless blots upon the rumpled bedding in their stalls--except
Huckleberry, the friendly little pinto with the white eyelashes and the
blue eyes, and the great, liver-colored patches upon his sides, and the
appetite which demanded food at unseasonable hours, who wa