e's three other points that's open."

With an oath the man caught her by the shoulders, and swung her round to
face him. He was swelling with anger. "You--Nick Pringle, that trading
cheat, that gambler! After four years, I--"

"Let go my shoulders," she said quietly. "I'm not your property. Go and
get some Piegan girl to bully. Keep your hands off. I'm not a bronco
for you to bit and bridle. You've got no rights. You--" Suddenly she
relented, seeing the look in his face, and realising that, after all,
it was a tribute to herself that she could keep him for four years
and rouse him to such fury--"but yes, Abe," she added, "you have some
rights. We've been good friends all these years, and you've been all
right out here. You said some nice things about me just now, and I
liked it, even if it was as if you learned it out of a book. I've got
no po'try in me; I'm plain homespun. I'm a sapling, I'm not any
prairie-flower, but I like when I like, and I like a lot when I like.
I'm a bit of hickory, I'm not a prairie-flower--"

"Who said you was a prairie-flower? Did I? Who's talking about
prairie-flowers--"

He stopped suddenly, turned round at the sound of a footstep behind him,
and saw, standing in a doorway leading to another room, a man who
was digging his knuckles into his eyes and stifling a yawn. He was a
refined-looking stripling of not more than twenty-four, not tall, but
well made, and with an air of breeding, intensified rather than hidden
by his rough clothes.

"Je-rick-ety! How long have I slept?" he said, blinking at the two
beside the fire. "How long?" he added, with a flutter of anxiety in his
tone.

"I said I'd wake you," said the girl, coming forwards. "You needn't have
worried."

"I don't worry," answered the young man. "I dreamed myself awake, I
suppose. I got dreaming of redcoats and U. S. marshals, and an ambush
in the Barfleur Coulee, and--" He saw a secret, warning gesture from the
girl, and laughed, then turned to Abe and looked him in the face. "Oh, I
know him! Abe Hawley's all O. K.--I've seen him over at Dingan's Drive.
Honour among rogues. We're all in it. How goes it--all right?" he added
carelessly to Hawley, and took a step forwards, as though to shake
hands. Seeing the forbidding look by which he was met, however, he
turned to the girl again, as Hawley muttered something they could not
hear.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"It's nine o'clock," answered the girl, her eyes watching his