he executors.

Then Clouston came in to announce that supper was ready, and Courthorne
took his place among the rest. The men were store-keepers of the
settlement, though there were among them frost-bronzed ranchers and
cattle-boys who had come in for provisions or their mail, and some of
them commenced rallying one of their comrades who sat near the head of
the table on his approaching wedding. The latter bore it
good-humoredly, and made a sign of recognition when Courthorne glanced
at him. He was a big man, with pleasant blue eyes and a genial,
weather-darkened face, though he was known as a daring rider and
successful breaker of vicious horses.

Courthorne sat at the bottom of the table, at some distance from him,
while by and by the man at his side laughed when a girl with a tray
stopped behind them. She was a very pretty girl with big black eyes,
in which, however, there lurked a somewhat curious gravity.

"Fresh pork or steak? Fried potatoes," she said.

Courthorne, who could not see her as he was sitting, started
involuntarily. The voice was, at least, very like one he had often
listened to, and the resemblance brought him a little shock of disgust
as well as uneasiness. Gambler and outcast as he was, there was a
certain fastidiousness in him, and it did not seem fitting that a girl
with a voice like the one he remembered should have to ask whether one
would take pork or steak in a little fourth-rate hotel.

"Take them right along, Ailly," said the man next to him. "Why don't
you begin at the top where Potter's waiting?"

Then Courthorne looked around and for a moment; set his lips tight,
while the girl would have dropped the tray had he not stretched out a
hand and seized it. A dark flush swept into her face and then as
suddenly faded out of it, leaving her very pale. She stood gazing at
him, and the fingers of one hand quivered on the tray, which he still
held. He was, as it happened, the first to recover himself, and there
was a little sardonic gleam in his eyes as he lifted down one of the
plates.

"Well," he said, "I guess Potter will have to wait. I'll take steak."

The others had their backs to the girl, and by the time one or two of
them turned round she was quietly helping Courthorne's companion; but
it was a moment or two before Courthorne commenced to eat, for the
waitress was certainly Ailly Blake. It was as certain that she had
recognized him, which was, however, by no means ast