part she had set herself to play. She
might smash things, she told herself, but at the worst it would be only
a premature smash. "Come, Bill," she adjured herself, pretending it
was what Ward would have said, had he looked into her mind. "Be a
Bill-the-Conk--and a good one! Shove in your chips and play for all
there is in it."

"You must have some lightning method of saddling, Mr. Seabeck," she
smiled over her shoulder at him when he came up.

"We learn to do things quick when we've handled cattle a few years," he
admitted. He had a diffident manner of receiving compliments which
pleased Billy Louise and gave her confidence a needed brace. She was
not a skilled coquette; she was too honest and too straightforward for
that. Still, nature places certain weapons in the hands of a woman,
and instinct shows her how to use them. Seabeck, from his very
unaccustomedness to women, seemed to her particularly pliable. Billy
Louise took her courage in both hands and went straight to the point.

"Mr. Seabeck, I've always heard that you're an awfully square man," she
said. "Daddy seemed to think that you could be depended on in any kind
of a pinch. I hope it's true. I'm banking a lot on your squareness
to-day."

"Why, I don't know about my being any better than my neighbors," he
said, with a twinkle of humor in his eyes, which were a bright,
unvarying blue. "But you can bank on my doing anything I can for you,
Miss MacDonald. I think I could be even better than square--to help a
plucky little girl who--"

"I don't mean just the ordinary squareness," Billy Louise put in
quietly. "I mean bigness, too; a bigness that will make a man be more
than square; a bigness that will let him see all around a thing and
judge it from a bigger viewpoint than mere justice--"

"Hm-mm--if you could trust me enough to--"

"I'm going to, Mr. Seabeck. I'm going to take it for granted you're
bigger than your own squareness. And if you're not--if you're just a
selfish, weak, letter-perfect, honest man, I'll--feel like--thrashing
you." Without a doubt that was the Billy of her which spoke.

"I'll take the thrashing if you think I need it," he promised, looking
at her with something more than admiration. "What have you done, Miss
MacDonald? If I can help you hide the body--"

"There!" Billy Louise dared to wrinkle her nose at him--and I don't
know which of her did it. "I knew you'd play up like a good sport.
But what if it isn