u, Lin McLean?"

"I just wanted chickens for supper," said he.

Mrs. Lusk gave a hard high laugh. "I'll eat 'em. It's not I that cares.
As for--" She stopped. Her eye had fallen upon the pistol and the name
"Neighbor." "As for you," she continued to Mr. Lusk, "don't you be
standing dumb same as the horse."

"Better take him to the stable, Lusk," said McLean.

He picked the chickens up, showed the woman to the best chair in his
room, and went into his kitchen to cook supper for three. He gave his
guests no further attention, nor did either of them come in where he
was, nor did the husband rejoin the wife. He walked slowly up and down
in the air, and she sat by herself in the room. Lin's steps as he
made ready round the stove and table, and Lusk's slow tread out in the
setting sunlight, were the only sounds about the cabin. When the host
looked into the door of the next room to announce that his meal was
served, the woman sat in her chair no longer, but stood with her back
to him by a shelf. She gave a slight start at his summons, and replaced
something. He saw that she had been examining "Neighbor," and his face
hardened suddenly to fierceness as he looked at her; but he repeated
quietly that she had better come in. Thus did the three sit down to
their meal. Occasionally a word about handing some dish fell from one
or other of them, but nothing more, until Lusk took out his watch and
mentioned the hour.

"Yu've not ate especially hearty," said Lin, resting his arms upon the
table.

"I'm going," asserted Lusk. "Governor Barker may start out. I've got my
interests to look after."

"Why, sure," said Lin. "I can't hope you'll waste all your time on just
me."

Lusk rose and looked at his wife. "It'll be ten now before we get to
Drybone," said he. And he went down to the stable.

The woman sat still, pressing the crumbs of her bread. "I know you seen
me," she said, without looking at him.

"Saw you when?"

"I knowed it. And I seen how you looked at me." She sat twisting and
pressing the crumb. Sometimes it was round, sometimes it was a cube, now
and then she flattened it to a disk. Mr. McLean seemed to have nothing
that he wished to reply.

"If you claim that pistol is yourn," she said next, "I'll tell you I
know better. If you ask me whose should it be if not yourn, I would not
have to guess the name. She has talked to me, and me to her."

She was still looking away from him at the bread-crumb, or she could