en there's good-lookin' gals in the fambly."

Dallas understood the insult. Her grey eyes flamed in her greyer face.
She slammed the window.

Matthews came near, so that his face all but touched the glass. "Oh,
that don't do no good, my dear," he said, raising his voice. "When I get
ready, I'll come in."

Marylyn had stilled her weeping to listen to him. Now, pallid with fear,
she threw herself upon her sister and again burst forth.

Dallas put her swiftly aside. The face that had been grey was now a
tense white. Her eyes were blazing. She sprang to the gun rack and put
up her arms.

But the pegs were empty!

CHAPTER IX

A HAND IN THE FUN

"What under the shining sun!" exclaimed Lounsbury, spilling ground
coffee into his boot-tops. He strode to the front of the store, the tin
scoop in his hand still held recklessly upside down. A pung was passing
the grocery--a green pung drawn by a milk-white horse. On its
quilt-padded seat were two men. Above them, as they slowly proceeded,
sagged a high board cross.

Lounsbury glanced inquiringly about him. His neighbours were also
watching the strange sight. At the windows of the bunk-house opposite,
and at the openings of other buildings near, were many faces, wide with
good-natured grins. As Lounsbury turned to the travellers again his own
mouth curved in a smile.

But, all at once, he sobered. The pung was now so far away that the
backs of the men were presented to him; and between them, projecting at
a slant over the seat, were the curved tops of a pair of crutches.

Jocular opinions of the passers-by were being freely exchanged back and
forth; he paid no heed to them. The scoop dropped from his hand and
clattered upon the floor; he let it lay. Silent and troubled, unaware of
the demands of an insistent customer, he looked after the departing
sleigh.

At last, he acted. Without waiting even to put on his cap, he started at
a run up the street. His race, bareheaded, increased the laughter of
those who were still watching. They yelled to him boisterously: "Sic'
'em, Bud!" "Sell 'em somethin', John!" "Drag 'em back an' skin 'em!" But
the storekeeper was deaf. Each yard made him more certain of the
identity of one traveller; his thoughts, as he pursued, were of him. He
gained rapidly on the pung. At the edge of the camp, in the trough of a
drift, he stopped it.

Lancaster spoke first, for Lounsbury was too spent. "Wal? wal?" he said
crabbedly.

"Excuse me