. But just as they
began to dance and the nigh bay had lashed out with a vicious hoof,
Gavin French came around the corner, and at his command the dogs shrank
as if he had laid a whip across them. Just then Gavin was wearing riding
breeches, moccasins, and a flannel shirt wide open at the throat and
stagged off at the sleeves, so that the bronzed column of his neck and
the full sweep of his long, splendidly muscled arms were revealed. He
strode softly, cat-footed, gripping with his toes, and the smoke of the
short pipe which was his inseparable companion, drifted behind him.

"Hello, Kit!" he said, and nodded to Angus. "Where is Blake? He went for
you."

"Blake's drunk," Kathleen replied.

"Drunk, is he?" Gavin said without surprise.

"And you're a nice bunch of brothers to send him! Couldn't one of you
have come?"

"Oh, well, he was going, anyway," said Gavin carelessly. "Did you see
him?"

"Yes, I saw him. He tried to stop Angus' team on the main street, and I
slashed him back with the whip."

"You little devil!" said her brother, but with a certain admiration in
his voice. "But that's pretty hard medicine, Kit!"

"And what sort of medicine is it for me to have a drunken blackguard of
a brother run out on the street to hold up the rig I'm driving in?" she
flared. "I'm entitled to ordinary respect; even if I am a sister, and
Blake and all of you had better understand it now."

"Pshaw!" said Gavin. "The trouble with you, Kit, is that you've got a
wire edge. You're set on a hair-trigger."

"And the trouble with Blake and the whole lot of you is that you've run
wild," she retorted. "You've got so that you don't care for anything or
anybody. You're practically savages. But I can tell you, you'll remember
some of the ordinary usages of civilization now I'm home."

"And a sweet temper you've come back in!" said Gavin. He lifted his
sister down over the wheel and reached for the trunk.

"It's heavy, Gan," she said, with a glance at Angus.

"Is it?" said Gavin, gripping the handles. He lifted it without apparent
effort, and set it on his right shoulder. "I may be able to stagger
along with it," he told her ironically. "Would you like me to carry you,
too?"

"You can't!"

"Can't I?" laughed the blond giant. "Have you any money left to bet on
that?"

"Five dollars that you can't carry me and the trunk--upstairs and to my
room."

"My five," said her brother. "Come here." With the trunk on his shoulder
he b