ed their heads to observe what was going on
inside the store. The old white horse was switching and stamping and
shuddering in his constant and futile battle against flies. Beyond the
road was silence and prairie.

Turning toward the trader, Helen thought to start in on a plea for
mercy, but one look into Talpers's face made her change her mind. Anger
set her heart beating tumultuously. She snatched at the letter in the
trader's hand, but Bill merely caught her wrist in his big fingers.
Swinging the riding-whip with all her strength, she struck Talpers
across the face again and again, but he only laughed, and finally
wrenched the whip away from her and threw it out in the middle of the
floor. Then he released her wrist.

"You've got lots o' spunk," said Bill, coming out from behind the
counter, "but that ain't goin' to git you anywheres in pertic'ler in a
case like this. You'd better set down on that stool and think things
over and act more human."

Helen realized the truth of Talpers's words. Anger was not going to get
her anywhere. The black events of recent hours had brought out
resourcefulness which she never suspected herself of having. Fortunately
Miss Scovill had been the sort to teach her something of the realities
of life. The Scovill School for Girls might have had a larger
fashionable patronage if it had turned out more graduates of the
clinging-vine type of femininity instead of putting independence of
thought and action as among the first requisites.

"That letter doesn't amount to so much as you think," said Helen; "and,
anyway, suppose I swear on the stand that I never wrote it?"

"You ain't the kind to swear to a lie," replied Bill, and Helen flushed.
"Besides, it's in your writin', and your name's there, and your Chinaman
brought it here. You can't git around them things."

"Suppose I tell my stepfather and he comes here and takes the letter
away from you?"

Talpers sneered.

"He couldn't git that letter away from me, onless we put it up as a
prize in a Greek-slingin' contest. Besides, he's too ornery to help out
even his own kin. Why, I ain't one tenth as bad as that stepfather of
yourn. He just talked poison into the ears of that Injun wife of his
until she died. I guess mebbe by your looks you didn't know he had an
Injun wife, but he did. Since she died--killed by inches--he's had that
Chinaman doin' the work around the ranch-house. I guess he can't make a
dent on the Chinese disposition, o