p to her and reached up to pull her from the saddle, that he
might hold her in his arms and kiss her--after the manner of bold young
men who are very much in love. But Miss Rosemary Allen stopped him with
a push that was not altogether playful, and scowled at him viciously.

"I am in a most furious mood today," she said. "I want to scratch
somebody's eyes out! I want to say WORDS. Don't come close, or I might
pull your hair or something, James." She called him James because that
was not his name, and because she had learned a good deal about his
past misdeeds and liked to take a sly whack at his notorious tendency to
forget the truth, by calling him Truthful James.

"All right; that suits me fine. It's worth a lot to have you close
enough to pull hair. Where have you been all this long while?" Being
a bold young man and very much in love, he kissed her in spite of her
professed viciousness.

"Oh, I've been to town--it hasn't been more than three days since we
met and had that terrible quarrel James. What was it about?" She frowned
down at him thoughtfully. "I'm still furious about it--whatever it is.
Do you know, Mr. Man, that I am an outlaw amongst my neighbors, and that
our happy little household, up there on the hill, is a house divided
against itself? I've put up a green burlap curtain on my southwest
corner, and bought me a smelly oil stove and I pos-i-tively refuse to
look at my neighbors or speak to them. I'm going to get some lumber and
board up that side of my house.

"Those three cats--they get together on the other side of my curtain and
say the meanest things!"

Andy Green had the temerity to laugh. "That sounds good to me," he told
her unsympathetically. "Now maybe you'll come down and keep house for me
and let that pinnacle go to thunder. It's no good anyway, and I told you
so long ago. That whole eighty acres of yours wouldn't support a family
of jackrabbits month. What--"

"And let those old hens say they drove me off? That Kate Price is
the limit. The things she said to me you wouldn't believe. And it all
started over my going with little Buck a few times to ride along your
fence when you boys were busy. I consider that I had a perfect right to
ride where I pleased. Of course they're furious anyway, because I don't
side against you boys and--and all that. When--when they found out
about--you and me, James, they said some pretty sarcastic things, but I
didn't pay any attention to that. Poor old fre