tinued. "He was a believer in law enforcement and he was a terror
to the bootleggers who carried whisky into our settlement. A man named
Gresh was notorious for selling whisky to the claim holders. He gave it,
Elinor, gave it, to a boy, a widow's son, made him drunk, robbed him,
and left him to freeze to death in a blizzard. The boy lived long enough
to tell my father who did it, and it was his testimony that helped to
convict Gresh and start him to the penitentiary. He escaped from the
sheriff on the way--and, so far as I know, there's one bad man still at
large, a fugitive before the law. Whisky is the devil's own best tool,
whether a man drinks it himself or gets other people to drink it."

"That's a bad name," Elinor said. "My grandfather adopted a boy named
Gresh, who turned out bad. I think he was killed in a saloon row in
Chicago. Did this Gresh ever trouble you again?"

Burleigh's face was grim as he answered:

"My father was waylaid and murdered with a club by this man. He escaped
afterward into Indian Territory. He left his own name, Gresh, scrawled
on a piece of paper pinned to my father's coat to show whose revenge
was worked out. He was a volcano of human hate--that man Gresh. After
my father's name was written--'The same club for every Burleigh who ever
crosses my path.' I expect to cross his path some day, and if I ever lay
my eyes on that fiend it will go hard with one of us." The yellow
glow burned again in Victor Burleigh's eyes and his fists clinched
involuntarily. They were silent a while, until the sweetness of the
day and the joy of being together wooed them to happier thoughts. Then
Elinor remembered her disordered hair and, throwing aside her hat, she
deftly put it into place.

"Am I presentable for the supper at the Kickapoo Corral?" she asked, as
she picked up her hat again.

"You suit me," Burleigh replied. "What are the Kickapoo requirements?"

"That Victor Burleigh shall be satisfied," she answered, roguishly.
"Really, that's right. Four girls offered to substitute for me in this
penitential pilgrimage and write some long translations for me beside."

"Four, individually or collectively?" he asked.

"Either way," she answered.

"Why did n't you let them do it?

"Which way?"

"Either way," he replied.

"Would you rather have had the four either way, than me?" she
questioned, with pretty vanity.

"Much rather." His voice was stern.

"Why?" She was stung by the answer.

The g