a sort that would never freckle, and he was amused
at his having remembered a remark so trivial. He had looked into her
eyes, had plunged into them, he fancied, for she had merely glanced up
at him: and he thought of the illumined-blue that mingles in the
rainbow, and he mused that he had never seen a head so fine, so
gracefully poised. And then he speculated upon the petulant waste of
her life. Almost divine could have been her mission; what a balm in a
house of sickness and distress. He thought of the pale man whom he had
seen lying near the window; he fancied himself thus doomed to lie and
waste slowly away, and he pictured the delight it would be to see her
enter the room, like an angel sent to soothe him with her smile. She
turned toward him to listen to a worshiping cousin, and Lyman saw her
lips bud into a pout, and it was almost a grief to see her so spoiled
and so shallow.

"Well, I see you are getting acquainted right along," said Zeb Sawyer,
speaking to Lyman. "A man doesn't have to live here long before he
knows everybody. But I'm kept so busy that I haven't much time for
society."

"What business are you in?" Lyman asked.

"Mules; nothing but mules. Oh, well, occasionally I handle a horse or
so, but I make a specialty of buying and selling mules. Good deal of
money in it, I tell you. McElwin used to do something in that line
himself. Yes, sir, and he paid me a mighty high compliment the other
day--he said I was about as good a judge of mules as he ever saw, and
that, coming from a man as careful as he is, was mighty high praise, I
tell you. Helloa, what's up?"

From the family sitting room had come a roar and a noise like the
upsetting of chairs. And into the parlor rushed McElwin, followed by
his wife, Staggs, Mrs. Staggs, and the white and terrified Miss Annie.

"A most damnable outrage!" McElwin shouted, making straight for Lyman.
"I mean you, sir," he cried, shaking his fist at Lyman. "You, sir. You
try to bunco me and now you conspire with an imbecile to humble me
into the dust. I mean you, sir. You have married my daughter. That
fool is an ordained preacher, and your sockless legislature did away
with marriage licenses."

Lyman looked about and saw Miss Eva faint in her mother's arms; he saw
terror in the faces about him, and his cheek felt the hot breath of
Sawyer's rage. He stepped back, for the banker's hand was at his
throat.

"Pardon me," he said, with a quietness that struck the company