turned from the window, and stood for a
long minute with her hands pressed tightly over her face. She was
trying to think, but instead she found herself listening intently to the
monotonous "Ah-h-CHUCK! ah-h-CHUCK!" of the steam pump down the track,
and to the spasmodic clicking of an order from the dispatcher to the
passenger train two stations to the west.

When the train was cleared and the wires idle, she went suddenly to the
table, laid her fingers purposefully upon the key, and called up her
chief. It was another two hours' leave of absence she asked for "on
urgent business." She got it, seasoned with a sarcastic reminder that
her business was supposed to be with the railroad company, and that she
would do well to cultivate exactness of expression and a taste for her
duties in the office.

She was putting on her hat even while she listened to the message, and
she astonished the man at the other end by making no retort
whatever. She almost ran to the store, and she did not ask Pete for a
saddle-horse; she just threw her office key at him, and told him she was
going to take his bay, and she was at the stable before he closed the
mouth he had opened in amazement at her whirlwind departure.

CHAPTER XXV. "I'D JUST AS SOON HANG FOR NINE MEN AS FOR ONE"

Baumberger climbed heavily out of the rig, and went lurching drunkenly
up the path to the house where the cool shade of the grove was like
paradise set close against the boundary of the purgatory of blazing
sunshine and scorching sand. He had not gone ten steps from the stable
when he met Good Indian face to face.

"Hullo," he growled, stopping short and eying him malevolently with
lowered head.

Good Indian's lips curled silently, and he stepped aside to pursue his
way. Baumberger swung his huge body toward him.

"I said HULLO. Nothin' wrong in that, is there? HULLO--d'yuh hear?"

"Go to the devil!" said Grant shortly.

Baumberger leered at him offensively. "Pretty Polly! Never learned but
one set uh words in his life. Can't yuh say anything but 'Go to the
devil!' when a man speaks to yuh? Hey?"

"I could say a whole lot that you wouldn't be particularly glad to
hear." Good Indian stopped, and faced him, coldly angry. For one thing,
he knew that Evadna was waiting on the porch for him, and could see
even if she could not hear; and Baumberger's attitude was insulting. "I
think," he said meaningly, "I wouldn't press the point if I were you."

"Giving me