girl, the worst sort o' way. Honest, Cap, I ain't happy. I used ter
eat an' sleep 'thout no sort of trouble, but now I'm all used up. I
ain't right. An' it's Nory."

"Why don't you marry her?" asked Franklin calmly.

Sam gasped. "I--I--that's it, that's just it! I--can't ast her!" he
said, with despair and conviction in his voice. "I've tried, and I
can't say a word to her about it, nothin' more than mebbe to ast her to
pass me the butter. She don't seem to understand."

"Well, what do you expect? Do you think she is going to ask you about
it herself?"

"My God, Cap, I don't know! I ever she did, I know mighty well what
I'd say. But she won't, and I can't. And there we are. I lose my
nerve every time I try to speak to her. Now, I say this to you, man to
man, you know, and no one the wiser; I can talk to anybody else about
this, to anybody but just Nory. Now, you've been goin' down to this
here Halfway House a-plenty for a long time, and I don't know as you
seem much furder along 'an I am. So I allowed maybe you was hooked up
a good deal the way I be. You go down there, an' set down and eat, an'
you set around like, but can't seem to make no break--you don't dast to
say what you want to say. Is that so?"

Franklin flushed, his first impulse being of distinct displeasure; yet
he recognised the perfect good faith of the other's remarks and turned
away without reply.

"An' what I was goin' to say," continued Sam, following after him, "is
like this. Now, you ain't afraid of Nory, an' I ain't afraid of Miss
Beecham. Turn about's fair play. I'll speak to Miss Beecham for you,
if you'll just sort o' lay this here before Nory for me. You needn't
say much, understand! If I ever onct get started, you know, I'll be
all right. I could tell her all about it then, easy enough. Now, say,
Cap, six of one and half a dozen of the other. Is it a go?"

Franklin could not keep back a smile. "Well, in regard to my half of
it," he said, "I can neither affirm nor deny it. But if what you say
were true, don't you think you might find it pretty hard to talk to
Miss Beauchamp on this matter?"

"Not in a hundred!" said Sam eagerly. "I'd just as soon talk to Miss
Beecham as not. I'd ruther. They ain't no feller around here that I
think's any whiter than you be. An' Lord knows, that girl down there
is handsome as ever looked through a bridle, and kind as she is
handsome. I've seen her now, reg'lar, in my tr