mportant. What do you think of it?"

"Nosey, eh?" he jeered. "If it won't inconvenience you any, I'll keep
what I think of it to myself. But it's plain to me now that when you
caught me tryin' to guzzle your granddad you thought I belonged to the
Taggart bunch. You told me I'd have to try again--or somethin' like
that. I reckon you thought I was after the idol?"

"Yes."

"Then the Taggarts have tried to get it since you've been here?"

"Many times."

"But you left the front door open the night I came," insinuated
Calumet, his eyes glowing subtly. "That looks like you was invitin'
someone to come in an' get the idol."

"We never bother much about barring the doors. Besides, I don't
remember to have told you that the idol is in the house," she smiled.

He looked at her with a baffled sneer. "Foxy, ain't you?" He folded
the letter and placed it into a pocket, she watching him silently. Her
gaze fell on the injured arm; she saw the angry red streaks spreading
from beneath the crude bandage and she got up, laying her book down and
regarding him with determined eyes.

"Please come out into the kitchen with me," she said; "I am going to
take care of your arm."

He looked up at her with a glance of cold mockery. "When did you get
my permission to take care of it? It don't need any carin' for. An'
if it did, I reckon to be able to do my own doctorin'."

She looked at him steadily and something in her gaze made him feel
uncomfortable.

"Don't be silly," she said. She turned and went out into the kitchen.
He could hear her working over the stove. He saw her cross the room
with a tea kettle, fill it with water from a pail, return and place the
kettle on the stove. He was determined that he would not allow her to
dress the wound, but when ten minutes later she appeared in the kitchen
door and told him she was ready, he got up and went reluctantly out.

She washed the arm, bathing the wound with a solution of water and some
medicine which she poured from a bottle, and then bandaged it with some
white cloth. Neither said anything until after she had delicately tied
a string around the bandage to keep it in place, and then she stepped
back and regarded her work with satisfaction.

"There," she said; "doesn't that feel better?"

"Some," he returned, grudgingly. He stood up and watched her while she
spread a cloth partly over the table and placed some dishes and food
upon it. He was hungry, and the sig