four walls of Poke Drury's road house.

"Nice name," offered old man Adams whose curiosity had kept stride with
his years and who, lacking all youthful hesitation, had been first to
get to the book. "Kind of stylish soundin'. But, Hill's Corners?" He
shook his head. "I ain't been to the Corners for a right smart spell,
but I didn't know such as _her_ lived there."

"They don't," growled the heavy set man who had snatched the register
from old man Adams' fingers. "An' I been there recent. Only last week.
The Corners ain't so all-fired big as a female like her is goin' to be
livin' there an' it not be knowed all over."

Poke Drury descended upon them, jerked the book away and with a screwed
up face and many gestures toward the kitchen recalled to them that a
flimsy partition, though it may shut out the vision, is hardly to be
counted on to stop the passage of an unguarded voice.

"Step down this way, gents," he said tactfully. "Where the bar is. Bein'
it's a right winterish sort of night I don't reckon a little drop o'
kindness would go bad, huh? Name your poison, gents. It's on me."

In her corner just beyond the flimsy partition, Winifred Waverly, of
Hill's Corners or elsewhere, drew the many coloured patch work quilt
about her and shivered again.

CHAPTER II

THE DEVIL'S OWN NIGHT

Hap Smith, the last to come in, opened the front door which the wind
snatched from his hands and slammed violently against the wall. In the
sudden draft the old newspapers on one of the oil-cloth covered tables
went flying across the room, while the rain drove in and blackened the
floor. Hap Smith got the door shut and for a moment stood with his back
against it, his two mail bags, a lean and a fat, tied together and flung
over his shoulder, while he smote his hands together and laughed.

"A night for the devil to go skylarkin' in!" he cried jovially. "A night
for murder an' arson an' robbin' graveyards! Listen to her, boys! Hear
her roar! Poke Drury, I'm tellin' you, I'm glad your shack's right where
it is instead of seventeen miles fu'ther on. An' ... Where's the girl?"
He had swept the room with his roving eye; now, dropping his voice a
little he came on down the room and to the bar. "Gone to bed?"

As one thoroughly at home here he went for a moment behind the bar,
dropped the bags into a corner for safety and threw off his heavy outer
coat, frankly exposing the big revolver which dragged openly at his
right hip. Bill