, and it turned out the
other way!"

"Don't know what queen you're talkin' about, nor what rules she made,
but when _I_ fight, I fight with everything I've got," Lou declared
with finality. "Come and let me fix up your head again, an' we'll have
supper."

An hour later and throughout the night, a slim little figure, rolled in
a man's shabby coat, lay sleeping peacefully in a corner of the mill,
while on the doorstep in his shirt sleeves and with a stout cudgel
across his knees, a weary man drowsed fitfully, on guard.

CHAPTER III

The Vendor of Everything

When Lou awakened the next morning at dawn it was her turn to find
herself deserted, but the fact failed to arouse any misgivings in her
mind. She had found in her brief experience with menfolks that they were
mostly queer, one way or another, but this one was dependable, and she
felt no doubt that he would turn up when he got ready.

Unwrapping her bundle, she took the apron, soap, and broken comb, and
wandered down the bank of the stream until in the seclusion beneath the
bridge she came upon a pool formed by outjutting rocks, where she
performed her limited toilet. Then, scrubbing the greasy apron
vigorously, she hung it on a bramble bush behind the mill to dry, and
scuttling across the road, made for the woods back of the house where
she had committed her nocturnal depredation.

An hour later when Jim came slowly up the hill road from the direction
of Hudsondale, he saw a tiny smudge of smoke rising from a rock well
hidden in the rank undergrowth at the edge of the stream, and
approaching it found Lou industriously brushing her coat with a broom
which she had improvised of small twigs tied together. Beside her,
carefully cradled in her sunbonnet, were half a dozen new-laid eggs.

"Good morning." He greeted her with a little bow, and sank down on the
rock. "Were you frightened to find yourself left all alone?"

"Oh, no. I knew you would come back," she replied serenely. Then, as she
noted his glance fall upon the eggs she added in swift self-defense:
"You needn't think I stole those; I found them back in the woods a
piece. O-oh!"

He had carried a large paper package under his arm, and now as he
unwrapped it her wonderment changed to swift rapture. It contained an
overall apron of bright pink check, a cheap straw hat, and a remnant of
green ribbon.

"I ain't had a pink dress since I was ten!" Her dark eyes were
perilously glistening. "I'd alm