rowl.

Good Indian stopped in the doorway, slipped off the bridle, gave Keno a
hint by slapping him lightly on the rump, and when the horse had gone
on into the cool shade of the stable, and taking his place in his stall,
began hungrily nosing the hay in his manger, he came back to unsaddle
Huckleberry, who was nodding sleepily with his under lip sagging much
like Baumberger's while he waited. That gentleman seemed to be once more
obstructing the path of Good Indian. He dodged back as Grant brushed
past him.

"By the great immortal Jehosaphat!" swore Baumberger, with an ugly leer
in his eyes, "I never knew before that I was so small I couldn't be seen
with the naked eye!"

"You're so small in my estimation that a molecule would look like a
hay-stack alongside you!" Good Indian lifted the skirt of Evadna's
side-saddle, and proceeded calmly to loosen the cinch. His forehead
smoothed a trifle, as if that one sentence had relieved him of some of
his bottled bitterness.

"YOU ain't shrunk up none--in your estimation," Baumberger forgot his
pose of tolerant good nature to say. His heavy jaw trembled as if he had
been overtaken with a brief attack of palsy; so also did the hand which
replaced his pipe between his loosely quivering lips. "That little
yellow-haired witch must have given yuh the cold shoulder; but you
needn't take it out on me. Had a quarrel?" He painstakingly brushed some
ashes from his sleeve, once more the wheezing, chuckling fat man who
never takes anything very seriously.

"Did you ever try minding your own business?" Grant inquired with much
politeness of tone.

"We-e-ell, yuh see, m' son, it's my business to mind other people's
business!" He chuckled at what he evidently considered a witty retort.
"I've been pouring oil on the troubled waters all forenoon--maybe I've
kinda got the habit."

"Only you're pouring it on a fire this time."

"That dangerous, yuh mean?"

"You're liable to start a conflagration you can't stop, and that may
consume yourself, is all."

"Say, they sure do teach pretty talk in them colleges!" he purred,
grinning loosely, his own speech purposely uncouth.

Good Indian turned upon him, stopped as quickly, and let his anger
vent itself in a sneer. It had occurred to him that Baumberger was not
goading him without purpose--because Baumberger was not that kind of
man. Oddly enough, he had a short, vivid, mental picture of him and the
look on his face when he was playing the