ver his
shoulder at his ruder male guests.

The girl went hastily as directed and sat down at the table, her back to
the room. The book she lifted down from its hanging place; there was a
stub of pencil tied to the string. She took it stiffly into her fingers
and wrote, "Winifred Waverly." Her pencil in the space reserved for the
signer's home town, she hesitated. Only briefly, however. With a little
shrug, she completed the legend, inscribing swiftly, "Hill's Corners."
Then she sat still, feeling that many eyes were upon her and waited the
return of the road house keeper. When finally he came back into the
room, his slow hesitating gait and puckered face gave her a suspicion of
the truth.

"I'm downright sorry, Miss," he began lamely. "Ma's got
somethin' ... bad cold or pneumonia ... an' she won't budge. There's
only one more bed room an' Lew Yates's wife has got one cot an Lew's
mother-in-law has got the other. An' _they_ won't budge. An' ..."

He ended there abruptly.

"I see," said the girl wearily. "There isn't any place for me."

"Unless," offered Drury without enthusiasm and equally without
expectation of his offer being of any great value, "you'd care to crawl
in with Ma ..."

"No, thank you!" said Miss Waverly hastily. "I can sit up somewhere;
after all it won't be long until morning and we start on again. Or, if I
might have a blanket to throw down in a corner ..."

Again Poke Drury left her abruptly. She sat still at the table, without
turning, again conscious of many eyes steadily on her. Presently from an
adjoining room came Drury's voice, subdued to a low mutter. Then a
woman's voice, snapping and querrulous. And a moment later the return of
Drury, his haste savouring somewhat of flight from the connubial
chamber, but certain spoils of victory with him; from his arm trailed a
crazy-quilt which it was perfectly clear he had snatched from his wife's
bed.

He led the way to the kitchen, stuck a candle in a bottle on the table,
spread the quilt on the floor in the corner, made a veritable ceremony
of fastening the back door and left her. The girl shivered and went
slowly to her uninviting couch.

Poke Drury, in his big general room again, stood staring with troubled
face at the other men. With common consent and to the last man of them
they had already tiptoed to the register and were seeking to inform
themselves as to the name and habitat of the prettiest girl who had ever
found herself within the