Wren says in--in--"

"'Our Mutual Friend?'" Good Indian suggested unexpectedly.

"Oh, you've read it!--where she always says: '_I_ know their tricks and
their manners!' And I do, from being so much with daddy in the office
and hearing him talk shop. I know that, without a single bit of justice
on their side, they could carry this case along till the very expense
of it would eat up the ranch and leave the Harts flat broke. And if
they didn't fight and keep on fighting, they could lose it--so there you
are."

She shut the book with a slam. "But," she added more brightly when
she saw the cloud of gloom settle blacker than before on his face, and
remembered that he felt himself at least partly to blame, "it helps a
lot to have the law all on our side, and--" She had to go then, because
the dispatcher was calling, and she knew it must be a train order.
"We'll read up a little more, and see just what are the requirements
of placer mining laws--and maybe we can make it a trifle difficult
for those eight to comply!" she told him over her shoulder, while her
fingers chittered a reply to the call, and then turned her attention
wholly to receiving the message.

Good Indian, knowing well the easy custom of the country which makes
smoking always permissible, rolled himself a cigarette while he waited
for her to come back to his side of the room. He was just holding the
match up and waiting for a clear blaze before setting his tobacco afire,
when came a tap-tap of feet on the platform, and Evadna appeared in the
half-open doorway.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, and widened her indigo eyes at him sitting there
and looking so much at home.

"Come right in, chicken," Miss Georgie invited cordially. "Don't stand
there in the hot sun. Mr. Imsen is going to turn the seat of honor over
to you this instant. Awfully glad you came. Have some candy."

Evadna sat down in the rocker, thrust her two little feet out so that
the toe, of her shoes showed close together beyond the hem of her
riding-skirt, laid her gauntleted palms upon the arms of the chair and
rocked methodically, and looked at Grant and then at Miss Georgie, and
afterward tilted up her chin and smiled superciliously at an insurance
company's latest offering to the public in the way of a calendar two
feet long.

"When did you come up?" Good Indian asked her, trying so hard to keep a
placating note out of his voice that he made himself sound apologetic.

"Oh--about an hour ago, I t