sisted Otto, with increased
vigour.

"Here's your hat, Otto," said Alf Reesling in a conciliatory voice. He
was brushing the article with the sleeve of his coat. "A horse must'a'
stepped on it or somethin'. I never see--"

"Ain'd I of age, Mr. Crow?" bellowed Otto. "Didn't I vote for you at the
last--"

"That ain't the question," interrupted Anderson sharply. "The question
is, is the girl of age?" He favoured his sixteen-year-old daughter with
a fiery glance.

Otto Schultz's broad, flat face became strangely pinched. There was
something positively apoplectic in the hue that spread over it.

"Oh, Pop!" shrieked Susie, a peal of laughter bursting from her lips.
Instantly, however, her two hands were pressed to her mouth, stifling
the outburst.

Otto gave her a hurt, surprised--and unmistakably horrified--look. Then
a silly grin struggled into existence.

"Maybe she don'd tell the truth aboud her age yet, Mr. Crow," he said
huskily. "Women always lie aboud their ages. Maybe she lie aboud hers."

Anderson flared. "Don't you dare say my daughter lies about her age--or
anything else," he roared.

"Whose daughter?" gasped Otto.

"Mine!"

"But she ain'd your daughter."

"_What!_ Well, of all the--"

Words failed Mr. Crow. He looked helplessly, appealingly at Alf
Reesling, as if for support.

[Illustration: _Words failed Mr. Crow_]

Mr. Reesling rose to the occasion.

"Do you mean to insinuate, Otto Schultz, that--" he began as he started
to remove his coat.

By this time Susie felt it was safe to trust herself to speech. She
removed her hands from her mouth and cried out:

"He isn't talking about me, Pop," she gasped. "It's Gertie Bumbelburg."

"Sure," said Otto hastily.

Mr. Crow still being speechless, Alf suspended his belligerent
preparations, and cocking one eye calculatingly, settled the matter of
Miss Bumbelburg's age with exasperating accuracy.

"Gertie's a little past forty-two," he announced. "Born in March, 1875,
just back o' where Sid Martin's feed-store used to be."

The marshal had recovered his composure.

"That's sufficient," he said, accepting Alf s testimony with a profound
air of dignity. "There ain't no law against anybody marryin' a woman old
enough to be his mother."

"Everybody in town give Gertie up long ago," added Alf, amiably. "Only
goes to show that while there's life there's hope. I'd 'a' swore she
was on the shelf fer good. How'd you happen to pick her, Otto?"

"S