rlotte."

"Still it would be great sport to see both the Charlottes--" Billy was
saying, when a servant brought a note on his tray and handed it to Mr.
Goodloe, who glanced at it and then hurriedly opened and read it.

"I am sorry, Mrs. Morgan, but will you let me answer this summons?" he
asked, and there was the regret in his rich voice of a great boy at
being snatched from a feast. "I am so hungry," he added with a laugh.

"Come back later. I'll save some of everything for you," said Nell
pleadingly.

"I will if I can," he answered. There was an excited smoulder in the
stars under the dull gold that made me restless and my eyes sought and
claimed his for a second in which a quick flash of the jeweled
tenderness of comprehension was flashed into my depths.

"Good-bye, everybody," he said, and in a second was out of the dining
room and we could hear him running down the steps.

"Oh, dear, if he just wasn't a preacher," sighed Harriet. "I suppose
somebody in the Settlement is dead or borned or drunk, and he has to go
and see about it. I wish--"

"Great Jehovah!" exclaimed Billy, as he suddenly jumped to his feet.
"Ensley is fighting drunk and has the gang around the Last Chance.
Parson's life isn't worth a tinker's damn if he runs foul of them with
all that talk about Martha Ensley and Jacob's threat. She came back last
night and Goodloe threatened to have Jacob arrested for beating her.
Come on, Nickols, and let's follow him. We'll be enough. The rest of you
go on eating, drinking and merrying because old Mark was born. We'll
come right back just as soon as we see that all is serene on the Potomac
of the Last Chance." And with a last hasty gulp at his wine glass Billy
followed Nickols out of the room. Nickols was both white and livid and
the expression of his face frightened me, for I knew that Billy would
minimize any kind of danger in the presence of a woman while Nickols
would not take that trouble.

It was with a queer breathlessness that we all sat before our wine
glasses in the midst of the perfume from the rich food and dying flowers
and waited--for what we didn't know.

Then it came!

A shot rang out clear and clean in the darkness and was quickly followed
by three barking echoes from a repeater.

And there seated in my chair in the brilliantly lighted room, blocks
away from the scene, I felt a bullet thud against dull gold.

CHAPTER XI

A BIT OF RAW LIFE

I don't know by what means of