nts
into a tin cup, and drank it off.

"No, I suppose you couldn't take a man down to Bindon," she said, as she
saw his hand trembling on the cup. Then she turned and entered the other
room again. Going to the cupboard, she hastily heaped a plate with
food, and, taking a dipper of water from a pail near by, she entered her
bedroom hastily and placed what she had brought on a small table, as her
visitor rose slowly from the bed.

He was about to speak, but she made a protesting gesture.

"I can't tell you anything yet," she said. "Who was it come?" he asked.

"My uncle--I'm going to tell him."

"The men after me may git here any minute," he urged anxiously.

"They'd not be coming into my room," she answered, flushing slightly.

"Can't you hide me down by the river till we start?" he asked, his eyes
eagerly searching her face. He was assuming that she would take him down
the river: but she gave no sign.

"I've got to see if he'll take you first," she answered.

"He--your uncle, Tom Sanger? He drinks, I've heard. He'd never git to
Bindon."

She did not reply directly to his words. "I'll come back and tell you.
There's a place you could hide by the river where no one could ever find
you," she said, and left the room.

As she stepped out, she saw the old man standing in the doorway of the
other room. His face was petrified with amazement.

"Who you got in that room, Jinny? What man you got in that room? I
heard a man's voice. Is it because o' him that you bin talkin' about no
weddin' to-morrow? Is it one o' the others come back, puttin' you off
Jake again?"

Her eyes flashed fire at his first words, and her breast heaved with
anger, but suddenly she became composed again and motioned him to a
chair.

"You eat, and I'll tell you all about it, Uncle Tom," she said, and,
seating herself at the table also, she told him the story of the man who
must go to Bindon.

When she had finished, the old man blinked at her for a minute without
speaking, then he said slowly: "I heard something 'bout trouble down at
Bindon yisterday from a Hudson's Bay man goin' North, but I didn't take
it in. You've got a lot o' sense, Jinny, an' if you think he's tellin'
the truth, why, it goes; but it's as big a mixup as a lariat in a
steer's horns. You've got to hide him sure, whoever he is, for I
wouldn't hand an Eskimo over, if I'd taken him in my home once; we're
mountain people. A man ought to be hung for horse-stealin', but this w