an The Corner is talking about--Donnegan! A
tramp!"

She caught her breath.

"Is that the one?" A pause. "Well, I believe it. He's capable of
anything!"

"I think you like him all the better for knowing that."

"Jack, you're angry."

"Why should I be? I hate to see you fooled by the bluff of a tramp,
though."

"Tush! Do you think I'm fooled by it? But it's an interesting bluff,
Jack, don't you think?"

"Nelly, he's interesting enough to make you blush; by heaven, the hound
is lookin' right at you now, Nelly!"

He had pressed her suddenly against the wall and she struck back
desperately in self-defense.

"By the way, what did he want to see you about?"

It spiked the guns of Landis for the time being, at least. And the girl
followed by striving to prove that her interest in Donnegan was purely
impersonal.

"He's clever," she ran on, not daring to look at the set face of her
companion. "See how he fails to notice that he's making a sensation?
You'd think he was in a big restaurant in a city. He takes the drink off
the tray from that fellow as if it were a common thing to be waited on
by a body-servant in The Corner. Jack, I'll wager that there's something
crooked about him. A professional gambler, say!"

Jack Landis thawed a little under this careless chatter. He still did
not quite trust her.

"Do you know what they're whispering? That I was afraid to face him!"

She tilted her head back, so that the light gleamed on her young throat,
and she broke into laughter.

"Why, Jack, that's foolish. You proved yourself when you first came to
The Corner. Maybe some of the newcomers may have said something, but all
the old-timers know you had some different reason for leaving the rest
of them. By the way, what was the reason?"

She sent a keen little glance at him from the corner of her eyes, but
the moment she saw that he was embarrassed and at sea because of the
query she instantly slipped into a fresh tide of careless chatter and
covered up his confusion for him.

"See how the girls are making eyes at him."

"I'll tell you why," Jack replied. "A girl likes to be with the man
who's making the town talk." He added pointedly: "Oh, I've found that
out!"

She shrugged that comment away.

"He isn't paying the slightest attention to any of them," she murmured.
"He's queer! Has he just come here hunting trouble?"

20

It should be understood that before this the men in Milligan's had
reached a su