of her own, and she spent it
on Horse Show horses, and traveling around to show them. But here she
stood in front of me, in a forsaken backwoods mine that I should not
have expected even Dudley himself to stay at if I had not known his
reasons.

"I don't wonder you say 'well,'" Marcia returned crisply. She was
good-looking in a big way, if you did not mind brown eyes that were too
small for her face and a smile that showed her gums. I had never liked
or disliked her especially, any more than you do any girl about your own
age whom you've always known. "I've been here for three months! I was
very near going home a month ago--but I don't think I'll go now. I
believe I'll try a winter here."

"A winter!" I thought of Marcia "trying a winter," and I laughed.

"Oh, you needn't throw back your handsome Indian head to grin at me,
Nicky Stretton," said she crossly. "I'm tired of always doing the same
thing. And anyhow, the stable lost money, and I had to sell out!"

"But why stay here--with Dudley?" I let out. The two of them had always
fought like cats.

"I'm going to do some shooting--and wolf hunting," Marcia smiled the
ugly smile I never could stand. "I'm going to stay, anyhow; so you'll
have to bear it, Nicky!"

"I'm--charmed!" I thought like lightning that my dream girl would do
whatever Marcia did, and I blessed my stars she was staying; though I
knew she would be all kinds of a nuisance if she insisted on turning out
to hunt wolves. She was all but dressed for it even then, in a horrid
green divided skirt that made her look like a fat old gentleman. But it
was not Marcia I meant to talk about.

"Have you brought the--other girl--to hunt wolves, too?" I inquired, as
we moved on down the passage; there was no upstairs to the shack.

"No," said Marcia quite carelessly, if I had not caught the snap in her
eyes. "She's come to hunt Dudley! She's going to marry him."

"She's _what_?" I was suddenly thankful we had left the light from my
open door and that Charliet despised keeping a lamp in the passage. The
bland idea that I had found my dream girl split to bits as if a half-ton
rock had landed on it. For her to be going to marry any one was bad
enough; but _Dudley_, with his temper, and his drink, and the drugs I
was pretty sure he took! The thing was so unspeakable that I stopped
short in the passage.

Marcia Wilbraham stopped short too. "I don't wonder you're knocked
silly," she said. "Here, come out of this;