r outfit?"

"What of it?" asked Gloria, erect and defiant.

"You know that Gratton has set out to ruin your father? That he's a
double-dealing scoundrel? That Brodie is worse? That neither is hardly
the sort for a girl to trust herself to in a place like this?"

"I am not given much choice," Gloria informed him with high insolence.

"That's a fact," he conceded with a grunt.

He'd give a thousand dollars right now to be well rid of her; yes, and
have Gratton and Brodie and the rest of them come on looking for any
sort of a row that suited their ilk. He told himself that with savage
emphasis, but he asked: could he let her go?

"Before I go," said Gloria when she thought that he had nothing further
to add, "I want to say just one thing: father has always considered you
his best friend. I shall lose no time in telling him what you really
are."

Gloria's remark, coming just when it did in King's perplexity, settled
his decision firmly on him. The girl was a vicious little fool; so he
was determined to think of her unequivocally. But she was, after all,
Ben Gaynor's daughter and, furthermore, the apple of Ben's eye. She was
in King's keeping; he had been eminently to blame for bringing her here,
his was the responsibility. Gratton's eye was the sort that soils a
woman.

"You are _not_ going," he said suddenly, turning upon her. "I won't
allow you to put yourself in Gratton's or Brodie's dirty hands."

A quick light was in her eyes, a quick spurt of satisfaction in her
heart. In King's decision she read the assurance that he was still madly
in love with her, that now his jealousy stirred him. She lifted her chin
and with her little bundle under her arm came forward, walking
confidently.

"Stand aside, please," she commanded. "I am going, I tell you."

Again sensing the familiarity of the battlefield she felt an almost
serene confidence, believing herself easily mistress of the situation.
So much must have been plain to King from that "Stand aside, please,"
which Miss Gloria Gaynor of last week might have addressed to a porter,
were it not that just now King's thought was not bended to trifles. When
she came to his side and he did not stir, she sought to brush by him.
There was no hesitation in the way in which he put out his hand and held
her back.

"There can be only one captain to an expedition in adventure," he told
her seriously. "I have been elected to the job. You'll pardon me if I
put matters into one-s