er with him?" demanded the girl greatly worried.

"He's down at the Inn----"

"I know. He went there to play at a dance tonight. That's why I am
here--to keep his wife company," explained Janice.

"Well," said Bowman. "I went down to get some of my books I'd left
there. They're having a high old time in that big back room,
downstairs. You know?"

"Where they are going to have the Assembly Ball?"

"Yes," he agreed.

"But it's nothing more than a dance, is it?" whispered Janice.
"Hopewell was hired to play----"

"I know. But such playing you never heard in all your life," said
Bowman, with disgust. "And the racket! I wonder somebody doesn't
complain to Judge Little or to the Town Council."

"Not with Mr. Cross Moore holding a mortgage on the hotel," said
Janice, with more bitterness than she usually displayed.

"You're right there," Bowman agreed gloomily.

"But what about Hopewell?"

"I believe they have given him something to drink. That Joe Bodley,
the barkeeper, is up to any trick. If Hopewell keeps on he will
utterly disgrace himself, and----"

Janice clung to his arm tightly, interrupting his words with a little
cry of pity. "And it will fairly break his wife's heart!" she said.

CHAPTER XIII

INTO THE LION'S DEN

Janice Day was growing up.

What really ages one in this life? Emotions.
Fear--sorrow--love--hate--sympathy--jealousy--all the primal passions
wear one out and make one old. This young girl of late had suffered
from too much emotion.

Nelson Haley's trouble; her father's possible peril in Mexico; the many
in whom she was interested being so affected by the sale of liquor in
Polktown--all these things combined to make Janice feel a burden of
responsibility that should not have rested upon the shoulders of so
young a girl.

"Frank," she whispered to Bowman, there in the front of the dusky
store, "Frank, what shall we do?"

"What can we do?" he asked quite blankly.

"He--he should be brought home."

"My goodness!" Bowman stammered. "Do you suppose Mrs. Drugg would go
down there after him?"

"She mustn't," Janice hastened to reply, with decision; "but I will."

"Not you, Janice!" Bowman exclaimed, recoiling at the thought.

"Do you suppose I'd let you tell Mrs. Drugg?" demanded the girl,
fiercely, yet under her breath.

"He's her husband."

"And I'm her friend."

Bowman looked admiringly at the flushed face of the girl. "You are
fine, Janice," he said.