st, the least you can do is to get a
partner out of this."

There was an ominous murmur, and the lad's face showed livid with fury
and humiliation, but Winston turned quietly to the hotel keeper.

"You will take this man with you into your side room and stop with him
there," he said. "Dane, give him the bills. The rest of you had
better sit down here and make a list of your losses, and you'll get
whatever the fellow has upon him divided amongst you. Then, because I
ask you, and you'd have had nothing but for me, you'll put him in his
wagon and turn him out quietly upon the prairie."

"That's sense, and we don't want no circus here," said somebody.

A few voices were raised in protest, but when it became evident that
one or two of the company were inclined to adopt more Draconic
measures, Dane spoke quietly and forcibly, and was listened to. Then
Winston reached out and grasped the shoulder of the English lad, who
made the last attempt to rouse his companions.

"Let them alone, Ferris, and come along. You'll get most of what you
lost back to-morrow, and we're going to take you home," he said.

Ferris turned upon him hoarse with passion, flushed in face, and
swaying a trifle on his feet, while Winston noticed that he drew one
arm back.

"Who are you to lay hands on a gentleman?" he asked. "Keep your
distance. I'm going to stay here, and, if I'd had my way, we'd have
kicked you out of Silverdale."

Winston dropped his hand, but the next moment the ornament of a
distinguished family was seized by the neck, and the farmer glanced at
Dane.

"We've had enough of this fooling, and he'll be grateful to me
to-morrow," he said.

Then his captive was thrust, resisting strenuously, out of the room,
and with Dane's assistance conveyed to the waiting wagon, into which he
was flung almost speechless with indignation.

"Now," said Dane quietly, "you've given us a good deal more trouble
than you're worth, Ferris, and if you attempt to get out again I'll
break your head for you. Tell Courthorne how much that fellow got from
you."

In another ten minutes they had jolted across the railroad track and
were speeding through the silence of the lonely prairie. Above them
the clear stars flung their cold radiance down through vast distances
of liquid indigo, and the soft beat of hoofs was the only sound that
disturbed the solemn stillness of the wilderness. Dane drew in a great
breath of the cool night air, and laughed