there's
some draining you ought to see to. It's a nice drive, anyways." Gordon
took the reins, slapping them on the rough, sturdy back of the horse, and
they started up the precarious track to the road. General Jackson's head
hung panting, wild-eyed, from the side of the vehicle.

V

It was late when they returned from the farm. Gordon left the buggy at the
Courthouse. The thought of his dwelling, with Lattice's importunate
fancies and complaints, was distasteful to him. A long-drawn-out evening
in the monotonous sitting room, with the grim form of Mrs. Caley in the
background, was insupportable. There was no light in the office of the
_Bugle_, but there was a pale yellow blur in the lower windows of
Peterman's hotel. It might be that a drummer had arrived, and was
entertaining a local circle with the pungent wit of the road; and Gordon
made his way toward the hotel.

It was a painted, wooden structure, two stories in height, with a wing
that ran back from the road. The rooms in the latter section were reached
from an outside, uncovered gallery, gained by a flight of steps at the
back. Contrary to his expectation no one was in the office; a lamp shone
on an empty array of chairs. But some one was on the gallery above; he
could see a white skirt through the railing, make out the dark blot of a
head upon the night. The illumination from within shone on his face.

The form above him leaned forward over the railing. "Mr. Makimmon," a
woman's voice said, "if you want Mr. Peterman, I'll call him. He's at the
back of the house."

Gordon was totally unaware of her identity.

"No," he replied, hesitatingly, "I wasn't after him in particular--"

"You don't know me," she challenged, laughing; "it's Meta Beggs; I teach
the school, you know."

Instantly the memory returned to him of a woman's round, gleaming
shoulders slipping into a web of soft white; he recalled the
school-teacher's bitter arraignment of her life, her prospects. "I didn't
know you," he admitted, "and that's the fact; it was the dark." He
hesitated once more, conscious of the awkwardness of his position, talking
upward to an indistinguishable shape. "I heard you were back," he
continued impotently.

"Yes," she assented, "there was nothing else open.... Won't you come up
and smoke a cigarette? It's pleasant here on the gallery."

He mounted the steps, making his way over the narrow, hollow-sounding
passage to her side. She was seated overlooking