h. He caught her words and laughed again. "Pshaw, I
didn't think you'd get jealous over a little thing like that, Nan.
When there's a celebration on in town, everybody's friendly with
everybody else. If you lay a little thing like that up against me,
where would the rest of the men get off? Your strawberry-faced
Medicine Bend friend is celebrating in town most of the time."

Her face turned white. "What a falsehood!" she exclaimed hotly.
Looking at her, satisfied, he laughed whole-heartedly again. She rose,
furious. "It's a falsehood," she repeated, "and I know it."

"I suppose," retorted Gale, regarding her jocosely, "you asked him
about it."

He had never seen her so angry. She stamped her foot. "How dare you
say such a thing! One of those women was at the hospital--she is there
yet, and she is going to die there. She told Uncle Duke's nurse the
men they knew, and whom they didn't know, at that place. And Henry de
Spain, when he heard this miserable creature had been taken to the
hospital, and Doctor Torpy said she could never get well, told the
Sister to take care of her and send the bills to him, because he knew
her father and mother in Medicine Bend and went to school with her
there when she was a decent girl. Go and hear what _she_ has to say
about Henry de Spain, you contemptible falsifier."

Gale laughed sardonically. "That's right. I like to see a girl stick
to her friends. De Spain ought to take care of her. Good story."

"And she has other good stories, too, you ought to hear," continued
Nan undismayed. "Most of them about you and your fine friends in town.
She told the nurse it's _you_ who ought to be paying her bills till
she dies."

Gale made a disclaiming face and a deprecating gesture. "No, no,
Nan--let de Spain take care of his own. Be a sport yourself, girlie,
right now." He stepped nearer her. Nan retreated. "Kiss and make up,"
he exclaimed with a laugh. But she knew he was angry, and knew what to
guard against. Still laughing, he sprang toward her and tried to catch
her arm.

"Don't touch me!" she cried, jumping away with her hand in her
blouse.

"You little vixen," he exclaimed with an oath, "what have you got
there?" But he halted at her gesture, and Nan, panting, stood her
ground.

"Keep away!" she cried.

"Where did you get that knife?" thundered Gale.

"From one who showed me how to use it on a coward!"

He affected amusement and tried to pass the incident off as a joke.
But his