t's coming
to him," whispered the man who had nearly upset him with the second chair.

"You're right, pard. If I'm any good at reading brands, she is as
self-protective as the McKinley bill."

The man Simpson was not a pleasant vis-a-vis. He wore the same picturesque
ruffianliness of apparel as his fellows, but the resemblance stopped
there. He lacked their dusky bloom, their clearness of eye, the suppleness
and easy flow of muscle that is the hall-mark of these frontiersmen. He
was fat and squat and had not the rich bronzing of wind, sun, and rain.
His small, black eyes twinkled from his puffy, white face, like raisins in
a dough-pudding.

He was ogling Mary amiably when the woman who kept the eating-house
brought him his breakfast. Mrs. Clark was a potent antidote for the
prevailing spirit of romance, even in this woman-forsaken country. A good
creature, all limp calico, Roman nose, and sharp elbows, she brought him
his breakfast with an ill grace that she had not shown to the others. The
men about the table gave him scant greeting, but the absence of enthusiasm
didn't embarrass Simpson.

He lounged expansively on the table, regarding Miss Carmichael attentively
meanwhile; then favored her with the result of his observations, "From the
East, I take it." And the dumpling face screwed into a smile whose mission
was pacific.

Every knife and fork in the room suspended action in anxiety to know how
the "yearling" would take it. Would their chivalry, which strained at a
gnat, be compelled to swallow such a conspicuous camel as the success of
Simpson? With the attitude he had taken towards the girl, there had crept
into the company an imperceptible change; deep-buried impulses sprang to
the surface. If a scoundrel like Simpson was going to try his luck, why
shouldn't they? They didn't see a pretty girl once in a blue moon. With
the advent of the green-eyed monster at the board, each man unconsciously
became the rival of his neighbor.

But Miss Carmichael merely continued her breakfast, and if she heard the
amiable deductions of Simpson regarding her, she gave no sign. But a
rebuff to him was in the nature of an appetizer, a fillip to press the
acquaintance. He encroached a bit farther on the narrow limits of the
table and continued, "Nice weather we're having."

Miss Carmichael gave her undivided attention to her coffee. The spurs and
sombreros, that had not relaxed a muscle in their strained observation of
the litt