st. Looked at a map in
a railroad office, and there it was, sticking right out at me, the
first name I lighted on. In small type too--curious, wasn't it? Clerks
in office hadn't heard of it, but I started out to find it. Thought
I'd better get to Paradise when I could. And now I'm glad. I feel like
an old settler, and I believe the cow-punchers have ceased to regard
me as a tenderfoot. That's as flattering as a Ph.D."

"I'm afraid they laugh at me," said Marion.

"On the contrary. Believe me, these cowboys have taken to reading
poetry since you came."

"Please be natural, Mr. Smythe!"

"Fact! I'd hardly got my things unpacked before one of them was
riding over to ask me if I had a book about Lady Clara Vere de Vere.
It seems he'd heard the poem recited somewhere. I asked him why he
wanted it, but he looked so flustered that I let him off. Didn't have
a Tennyson with me, unfortunately, but I gave him my Byron, and I
think that will hold him for a while."

"Charming!" exclaimed Marion. "But what has all that to do with me?"

"He's the chap that grabbed you in his arms when you were falling from
your horse after that little business at Thompson's the other day."

Marion blushed, and then laughed.

"But how did you come to hear about that?" she demanded.

He chuckled.

"Oh, I hear everything!" he replied. "My friends say I've a nose for
news."

"Well, I shall be very careful what I say to you."

"Please, no!" he protested. "I'm a safety vault when it comes to
secrets."

She glanced quickly toward the door of Seth's bedroom, then toward the
kitchen, before she spoke.

"So you've heard all about that day at the post-office?" she said in a
low voice.

"Yes."

"Terrible!"

"But not unexpected."

"Why not unexpected?"

"Well," he replied, lowering his voice, and leaning nearer to Marion,
"I'm afraid Huntington was looking for it."

"You mean--he deserved it?"

"I won't say that. You see--I'm neutral, like Thompson. I like
Huntington, and I like Haig. I look at this fight without prejudice,
even though I've a reason to be prejudiced."

"In favor of--?"

"Huntington."

"Why, please?"

"Huntington accepts my friendship, after a fashion."

"But--the other?"

"Nothing doing!"

Marion stared at him, wondering.

"Fact!" he assured her, with a sheepish smile.

"But why?"

"Don't know. I'd like to, but he lives like a hermit. Latchstring
never hangs outside his door."

There was a certain e