grimly and
muttered: "Hold tight, young man. She's not your kind--she's not your
kind."

Inside the store he found Doret and the trader in conversation with a
man he had not met before, a ragged nondescript whose overalls were
blue and faded and patched, particularly on the front of the legs above
the knees, where a shovel-handle wears hardest; whose coat was of
yellow mackinaw, the sleeves worn thin below the elbows, where they had
rubbed against his legs in his work. As the soldier entered, the man
turned on him a small, shrewd, weather-beaten face with one eye, while
he went on talking to Gale.

"It ain't nothin' to git excited over, but it's wuth follerin'. If I
wasn't so cussed unlucky I'd know there was a pay streak som'ere close
by."

"Your luck is bound to change, Lee," said the trader, who helped him to
roll up a pack of provisions.

"Mebbe so. Who's the dressmaker?" He jerked his bushy head towards
Burrell, who had stopped at the front door with Poleon to examine some
yellow grains in a folded paper.

"He's the boss soldier."

"Purty, ain't he?"

"If you ain't good he'll get you," said Gale, a trifle cynically, at
which Lee chuckled.

"I reckon there's several of us in camp that ain't been a whole lot too
good," said he. "Has he tried to git anybody yet?"

"No, but he's liable to. What would happen if he did? Suppose, for
instance, he went after you--or me?"

The one-eyed man snorted derisively. "It ain't wuth considerin'!"

"Why not?" insisted Gale, guardedly. "Maybe I've got a record--you
don't know."

"If you have, don't tell me nothin' about it," hastily observed Lee.
"I'm a God-fearin' citizen myself, leanin' ever towards peace and
quietudes, but what's past is dead and gone, and I'd hate to see a
lispin' child like that blue-and-yeller party try to reezureck it."

"He's got the American army to back him up--at least five of them."

"Five agin a hundred. He aims to overawe us, don't he?" snickered the
unregenerate Lee, but his wrinkles changed and deepened as he leaned
across the counter confidentially.

"You say the word, John, and I'll take some feller along to help me,
and we'll transfer this military post. There's plenty that would like
the job if you give the wink."

"Pshaw! I'm just supposing," said the trader. "As long as they play
around and drill and toot that horn, and don't bother anybody, I allow
they're not in the way."

"All right! It's up to you. However, if I happe