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n his little old jail damn' soon, or he'll have a bunch of wild men in his hair. And he knows it. Now we can get our crop planted and things will be ripe for him to gather in in eleven days." "Let's go inside." Pollard turned toward the front door. "I want to see Winifred. I want to see how she looks before she gets through thinking about Thornton." And Winifred Waverly, who, after her stunned hesitation when she had seen Thornton and Broderick standing side by side in the doorway, and who had hurried out through the back door, hoping to find Thornton before he had gone, got to her feet in the black shadow where she had crouched by the school house wall, her face dead white, her eyes wide and staring, her heart pounding wildly. CHAPTER XXI THE GIRL AND THE GAME She did not fully understand, she could not grasp everything yet, she was filled with doubts and suspicions and a growing terror. What had her uncle said to Thornton, what had the cowboy "swallowed whole"? What was the whole scheme which connected the two men, which envolved Thornton and the sheriff, which seemed clear in one moment only to be a tangle in the next? One thing only was perfectly clear now to the girl. And seeing it, she gathered up her skirts in her two hands and ran, ran back along the wall, keeping in the shadows, drawing close about her the dark cloak she had thrown about her white dress. She must get into the house before they came in, she must let her face show nothing, she must have time to think before she spoke with them. So she came to the back door, paused a brief moment, commanding her nerves to be steady, then slipped in, letting the cloak fall from her shoulders. She saw Bud King standing with his back to the wall watching the dancers, and going swiftly to him, putting her hand lightly upon his arm, she summoned a smile into her eyes as she cried breathlessly: "Will you dance this with me?" Young King looked at her in quick surprise, startled at the nearness of the girl for whom his eyes had been seeking, and a little flush ran up into his cheeks, a sparkle of gladness into his eyes. "Sure," he grinned happily. "I been looking for you, Miss Waverly." He ran his arm about her, she bent her head a little so that he could not see the whiteness of her face, and they caught the beat of the music. She lost the step, purposely that she might have a little more time before they pass down the room toward Pollard an
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