t my hands helplessly.

"Well, Rita, don't you worry your little head over it. It is all
right."

"Oh, no, it ain't! Don't fool yourself. You don't know Joe."

"I reckoned him a man who could keep his own counsel. How did you come
to hear there had been any words?"

"He was over home. He only comes once in a while now. He didn't do
anything but talk about you. Called you all kinds of things. Says
he'll fix you good;--and he will, too, or he ain't the Joe Clark
everybody knows around here."

Her eyes became tender and moist as she held out her hands to me with
an involuntary movement. "Oh! what did you want to quarrel with him
for, before you knew anything about him?"

I rose and laid my hand lightly on her shoulder, as I would with a
little sister,--had I had one,--for she seemed only a slip of a girl
and it hurt me to see her so upset.

"Look here! little maid," I said, "you forget all about it. Joe came
in here and asked me to do what the man who employed me particularly
instructed me against doing. I declined, and Joe became foolish,
losing his temper completely. This Joe likes to trample on men. He
grew angry because I would not let him do any trampling on me. No!
Rita, I am not a teeny-weeny little bit afraid of Joe Clark."

She looked up at me in astonishment, then she sort of despaired again.

"Oh! that's 'cause you don't know him. Everybody's got to do as Joe
says,--here and in the Camps and pretty near all along the coast."

I laughed easily; for what did I care? Joe's worst, whatever it might
be, could not hurt me very badly. I was not so deeply into anything
yet for that.

"He's a big man, and can hurt,--and he hurts everybody that runs up
against him."

I leaned over against the window ledge and surveyed Rita.

"Well,--" I said, "I'm not as big as Joe is, but I have been schooled
to hold my own. Joe shall have a good run for his money when he
starts."

"Oh!--I know you're strong, and big, though not as big as him, and that
you ain't afraid. Maybe that's why I like Joe sometimes,--he's never
afraid.

"Still,--I don't like him half as much as I used to," she sighed. "But
I didn't mean fighting when I talked of him being big and strong.
Joe's got influence, Joe's got money, he's got tugs and he's
superintendent of the Camps. He says he's boss of the whole shootin'
match, and you'll find it out soon."

"He may be nearly all you say, but he has nothing to do with George