ing. Her eyes were red, as if she had been weeping.
Harley looked from host to hostess with curious glance, but he was still
silent.

"This is Marthy, my wife, gen'lemen," said Simpson. "Marthy, this is Mr.
Grayson, the greatest man in this here United States, and the other is
one of the newspaper fellers that travels with him."

Jimmy Grayson bowed with great courtesy, and apologized so gracefully
for the intrusion that an ordinary person would have been glad to be
intruded upon in such a manner. The woman said nothing, but stared
vacantly at her guests. The old man came to her relief.

"Marthy ain't used to visitors, least of all a man like you, Mr.
Grayson, and it kind o' upsets her," he said. "You see, Marthy an' me
lives here all by ourselves."

The woman started and looked at him.

"All by ourselves," repeated the man, firmly; "but we'll do the best we
kin."

"Daniel," suddenly exclaimed the old woman, in high, shrill tones, "why
don't you put down your gun? Mr. Grayson'll think you're a-goin' to
shoot him."

The old man laughed, but the ever-watchful Harley saw that the laugh was
not spontaneous.

"I 'clar' to gracious," he said, "I clean forgot I had old Deadeye. You
see, Mr. Grayson, when I heerd the dogs barkin', sez I to myself 'it's
robbers, shore'; and before I h'ists the window up-stairs I reaches old
Deadeye off the hooks, and then, if it had 'a' been robbers, it wouldn't
'a' been healthy for 'em."

"I'm sure of that, Mr. Simpson," said Jimmy Grayson; "you don't look
like a man who would allow himself to be run over."

"An' I wouldn't," said the old man, with sudden, fierce emphasis. But he
put the rifle on the hooks over the fireplace. Such hooks as these were
not usual in Nebraska; but Jimmy Grayson was too polite to say anything,
and Harley was still watching every movement of the old man. The driver
returned at this moment from the stable, and, reporting that he had fed
the horses, took his place with the others at the fire.

"I 'low you-uns would like to eat a little," said the old man, laughing
in the same unnatural way. "Marthy, tote in suthin' from the kitchen as
quick as you kin."

The old woman raised her startled, frightened eyes, and for a moment her
glance met Harley's; it seemed to him to be full of entreaty; the whole
atmosphere of the place was to him tense, strained, and tragic; why, he
did not know, but he shook himself and decided that it was only the
result of weariness