upon the manger in the nearest stall.

"I guess he's afraid of _me_," ventured a voice that he felt to his
toes. "I was hunting eggs. They lay them always in the awkwardest
places to get at." She scrambled down and came toward him, bareheaded,
with the sleeves of her blue-and-white striped dress rolled to her
elbows--Flora Bridger, if you please.

Billy stood still and stared, trying to make the reality of her
presence seem reasonable; and he failed utterly. His most coherent
thought at that moment was a shamed remembrance of the way he had
sworn at his horse.

Miss Bridger stood aside from the wild-eyed animal and smiled upon his
master. "In the language of the range, 'come alive,' Mr. Boyle," she
told him. "Say how-de-do and be nice about it, or I'll see that
your coffee is muddy and your bread burned and your steak absolutely
impregnable; because I'm here to _stay_, mind you. Mama Joy and I have
possession of your kitchen, and so you'd better--"

"I'm just trying to let it soak into my brains," said Billy. "You're
just about the last person on earth I'd expect to see here, hunting
eggs like you had a right--"

"I _have_ a right," she asserted. "Your Dilly--he's a perfect love,
and I told him so--said I was to make myself perfectly at home. So I
have a perfect right to be here, and a perfect right to hunt eggs;
and if I could make that sentence more 'perfect,' I would do it." She
tilted her head to one side and challenged a laugh with her eyes.

Charming Billy relaxed a bit, yanked the horse into a stall and tied
him fast. "Yuh might tell me how it happened that you're here," he
hinted, looking at her over the saddle. He had apparently forgotten
that he had intended leaving the horse saddled until he had rested
and eaten--and truly it would be a shame to hurry from so unexpected a
tete-a-tete.

Miss Bridger pulled a spear of blue-joint hay from a crack in the wall
and began breaking it into tiny pieces. "It sounds funny, but Mr.
Dill bought father out to get a cook. The way it was, father has been
simply crazy to try his luck up in Klondyke; it's just like him to
get the fever after everybody else has had it and recovered. When the
whole country was wild to go he turned up his nose at the idea. And
now, mind you, after one or two whom he knew came back with some gold,
he must go and dig up a few million tons of it for himself! Your Dilly
is rather bright, do you know? He met father and heard all about his
co