lf, 'Jacob, you ought to get a
sody-water fountain for the ladies what has the same right to thirst as
a man.' And I will, too, if my bad luck just leaves me. How about a nice
cool bottle of beer sitting comfortable here before the counter?"

"Are you--_you_--Jacob--I mean--Mr. Jacob Ensley?" I further gasped.
This daylight materialization of the grewsome beast of the night was too
much for me.

"Jacob Ensley at your service, Miss," he answered with easy dignity.
"Now, will it be the bottle of beer I shall bring you? Or there's a new
drink I might mix fer you that a young gentleman friend of mine from
New York has taught me, and with a good Irish name of Thomas
Collins--the drink, not the young gentleman." Nickols had been living on
Tom Collins for the last month and I instantly knew that I recognized
the young friend from New York. Also my wits were at a branching of the
road and I didn't know just what to do or say as Jacob waited with easy
courtesy for my decision. And again I was too much perturbed for
invention and had to speak out the truth.

"I'm Charlotte Powers, Mr. Ensley, and I came down to see your daughter,
Martha," I said, looking directly into his clear friendly eyes which I
saw instantly darken with a storm as the smile left his nice mouth and
it hardened into a straight line.

"I'm sorry, Miss Powers, but my Martha ain't at home right now to you,
and I don't know when she will be. Is that all I can do for you? These
berries now, from over at Paradise Ridge?" And with the ease of a man of
the great upper world Jacob Ensley of the lower walks of life put me out
of the door of his private life into the ranks of the meddler and shut
it in my face. I acknowledged to myself that my rebuff was justifiable
and I was about to make an exit from the scene as gracefully as possible
with a box of the really delicious berries under my arm when a cry of
terror in a child's voice came from somewhere at the back of the grocery
and together the grocer and I ran to see what the matter could be. And
at the heels of the proprietor I then penetrated the blind of the
grocery and entered the Last Chance.

CHAPTER XII

THE TENACIOUS TURTLE

"It's Martha's Stray," the big man gasped in a kind of impatient alarm.
"I just left him here a minute ago to go front." Together he and I
started around the long room with its bar on the one side backed up by a
mirror whose gilt frame was swathed in mosquito netting and on e