rightened."
Then quickly: "Yes, this is Miss Jane's school, and I am Miss Jane."

A curious sound rattled in the newcomer's throat, and his chin dropped
with stupid amazement. For a long moment he stared at her, his pupils
dilating and contracting in a strangely fascinating way, and his body
beginning slowly to rock from side to side as it had done in the thicket
across the road. But just now she was meeting his gaze with a look of
excited gladness.

"Yeou! Miss Jane?" he murmured, each syllable vibrating with some deep
timbre of admiration and protection. Another moment he stared, then his
eyes turned and rested unflinchingly on Tusk. It was a look particularly
expressive neither of surprise nor condemnation, hatred nor scorn, yet
its very impassivity carried a pulsing sense of danger, as though
something terrible were on the verge of happening and the various
elements of destruction were being hurriedly assembled. But quietly he
turned again to the girl.

"Lucy's outside. Maybe ye'd better let her take ye home!"

"Oh, ask her to come in," she cried, feeling the need of a woman perhaps
more than at any time in her life, and now fearful of another sort of
tragedy. She was not sure of how much this newcomer had seen, but his
look at Tusk was eloquent of one thing: that if these men were left
alone the building would receive its first stain of human blood. She
wanted to spare her schoolhouse this. It was her boast that no life
should go out by violence beneath its roof: for it had long been a
recognized custom in wilder regions of this country for men to choose
the wayside schools, the scattered churches or crossroads stores as
places from which to usher obtrusive neighbors into eternal rest.

"Wall, she can't do that," the newcomer thoughtfully replied, "seein' as
how she's my ole mare. But ye mought take her 'n' go home. Me 'n' this
feller'll watch yo' school!"

Looking from one to the other, weighing the chances of outwitting Tusk,
she lightly suggested:

"My own horse is in the shed. You may help me put on the saddle!"

"All right," he readily answered. "'N' yeou," he turned to Tusk, now
watching them with growing malignancy, "wait hyar till I git back: then
verily, verily, I say unto ye, we'll cast another devil outen the Lawd's
temple!"

She was alert to acquiesce in this. Her instinct said that unless
something tentative were left in view, some further part of the drama
held out to be played, the simple-