ooks,
understandingly. She arose to the defense of her sex.

"Well," she said, facing him, as if he had voiced his sentiment, "what
would you have? Women are what men make them, no better, no worse."

"I have made no criticism," he retorted.

"No, but you thought one," she asserted. "But, pshaw! I didn't come
here to argue. I came up to tell you that the dance-hall girl will
recover and has friends who will see that she doesn't starve, even if
she no longer works in my place. Also, I came to see how Mister--what
is your name, anyway?--is."

"Mathews, ma'am. William Mathews. My friends call me Bill. I don't
allow the others to call me anything."

The temporary and threatening cloud was dissipated by the miner's
rumbling laugh, and they sauntered across the yard, the bay horse
looking after them, but standing as firmly as if the loosened reins
were tied to a post instead of resting on the ground. A swamper,
carrying a bundle of drills, trudged across the yard to the blacksmith
shop, as they stood in its doorway.

"I sent you the best men I could pick up," The Lily said. "You did me
a good turn, and I did my best to pay it back. That blacksmith is all
right. Some of the others I know, but I don't know him. Never saw him
before. You'd better watch him."

She pointed at the swamper as coolly as if he were an inanimate
object, and he glared at her in return, then dropped his eyes.

"I told you I didn't run an employment agency," she went on, "but if
any of these fellows get fresh, let me know, and I'll try to get you
others. How does the Cross look, anyway?"

They turned away and accompanied her over the plant above ground, and
heard her greet man after man on a level of comradeship, as if she
were but a man among men. Her hard self-possession and competence
impressed the younger man as a peculiar study. It seemed to him, as he
walked beside her thoughtfully, that every womanly trait had been
ground from her in the stern mills of circumstance. He had a vague
desire to probe into her mind and learn whether or not there still
dwelt within it the softness of her sex, but he dared not venture. He
stood beside the bandaged veteran as she rode away, a graceful,
independent figure.

"Is she all tiger, or part woman?" he said, turning to Mathews, whose
eyes had a singularly thoughtful look.

The latter turned to him with a quick gesture, and threw up his
unbandaged hand.

"My boy," he said, "she's not a half of anythi