o him out of the vastness which he now believed to
have been her spirit calling to him.

"You're worth something better than this," after a while he murmured
with the tenderness of real love in his voice.

"What's better'n this?" questioned the Girl with a toss of her pretty
blonde head. "I ain't a-boastin' but if keepin' this saloon don't give
me sort of a position 'round here I dunno what does."

But the next moment there had flashed through her mind a new thought
concerning him. She came out from behind the bar and confronted him with
the question:

"Look 'ere, you ain't one o' them exhorters from the Missionaries' Camp,
are you?"

The road agent smiled.

"My profession has its faults," he acknowledged, "but I am not an
exhorter."

But still the Girl was nonplussed, and eyed him steadily for a moment or
two.

"You know I can't figger out jest exactly what you are?" she admitted
smilingly.

"Well, try . . ." he suggested, slightly colouring under her persistent
gaze.

"Well, you ain't one o' us."

"No?"

"Oh, I can tell--I can spot my man every time. I tell you, keepin'
saloon's a great educator." And so saying she plumped herself down in a
chair and went on very seriously now: "I dunno but what it's a good way
to bring up girls--they git to know things. Now," and here she looked at
him long and earnestly, "I'd trust you."

Johnson was conscious of a guilty feeling, though he said as he took a
seat beside her:

"You would trust me?"

The Girl nodded an assent and observed in a tone that was intended to be
thoroughly conclusive:

"Notice I danced with you to-night?"

"Yes," was his brief reply, though the next moment he wondered that he
had not found something more to say.

"I seen from the first that you were the real article."

"I beg your pardon," he said absently, still lost in thought.

"Why, that was a compliment I handed out to you," returned the Girl with
a pained look on her face.

"Oh!" he ejaculated with a faint little smile.

Now the Girl, who had drawn up her chair close to his, leaned over and
said in a low, confidential voice:

"Your kind don't prevail much here. I can tell--I got what you call a
quick eye."

As might be expected Johnson flushed guiltily at this remark. No
different, for that matter, would have acted many a man whose conscience
was far clearer.

"Oh, I'm afraid that men like me prevail--prevail, as you say,--almost
everywhere," he said, laying such st