before Eight is due. Please." Miss Georgie did
not often send that last word of her own volition. All up and down the
line she was said to be "Independent as a hog on ice"--a simile not
pretty, perhaps, nor even exact, but frequently applied, nevertheless,
to self-reliant souls like the Hartley operator.

Be that as it may, she received gracious permission to lock the office
door from the outside, and she was not long in doing so, and heaved a
great sigh of relief when it was done. She went straight to the store,
and straight back to where Pete Hamilton was leaning over a barrel
redolent of pickled pork. He came up with dripping hands and a
treasure-trove of flabby meat, and while he was dangling it over the
barrel until the superfluous brine dripped away, she asked him for a
horse.

"I dunno where Saunders is again," he said, letting his consent be
taken for granted. "But I'll go myself and saddle up, if you'll mind the
store. Soon as I finish waitin' on this customer," he added, casting a
glance toward a man who sat upon the counter and dangled his legs while
he apathetically munched stale pretzels and waited for his purchases.

"Oh, I can saddle, all right, Pete. I've got two hours off, and I want
to ride down to see how the Harts are getting along. Exciting times down
there, from all accounts."

"Maybe I can round up Saunders. He must be somewheres around," Pete
suggested languidly, wrapping the pork in a piece of brown paper and
reaching for the string which dangled from the ball hung over his head.

"Saunders is asleep, very likely. If he isn't in his room, never mind
hunting him. The horse is in the stable, I suppose. I can saddle better
than Saunders."

Pete tied the package, wiped his hands, and went heavily out. He
returned immediately, said that Saunders must be up at the stable, and
turned his attention to weighing out five pounds of white beans.

Miss Georgie helped herself to a large bag of mixed candy, and put
the money in the drawer, laid her key upon the desk for safe-keeping,
repinned her white sailor hat so that the hot wind which blew should not
take it off her head, and went cheerfully away to the stable.

She did not saddle the horse at once. She first searched the pile of
sweet-smelling clover in the far end, made sure that no man was there,
assured herself in the same manner of the fact that she was absolutely
alone in the stable so far as humans were concerned, and continued her
search;