e had probably been picking
one out suitable for the occasion. "Putting his best foot foremost," was
her comment; "I suppose they have best feet, like the rest of us." Then
she grew delightfully sharp. "Do you know, when I first heard him I
thought his voice was hearty. But if you listen, you'll find it's
merely militant. He never really meets you with it. He's off on his hill
watching the battle-field the whole time."

"He will find a hardened pagan here."

"Judge Henry?"

"Oh, no! The wild man you're taming brought you Kenilworth safe back."

She was smooth. "Oh, as for taming him! But don't you find him
intelligent?"

Suddenly I somehow knew that she didn't want to tame him. But what did
she want to do? The thought of her had made him blush this afternoon. No
thought of him made her blush this evening.

A great laugh from the rest of the company made me aware that the Judge
had consummated his tale of the "Sole Survivor."

"And so," he finished, "they all went off as mad as hops because
it hadn't been a massacre." Mr. and Mrs. Ogden--they were the New
Yorkers-gave this story much applause, and Dr. MacBride half a minute
later laid his "ha-ha," like a heavy stone, upon the gayety.

"I'll never be able to stand seven sermons," said Miss Wood to me.

"Talking of massacres,"--I now hastened to address the already saddened
table,--"I have recently escaped one myself."

The Judge had come to an end of his powers. "Oh, tell us!" he implored.

"Seriously, sir, I think we grazed pretty wet tragedy but your
extraordinary man brought us out into comedy safe and dry."

This gave me their attention; and, from that afternoon in Dakota when I
had first stepped aboard the caboose, I told them the whole tale of my
experience: how I grew immediately aware that all was not right, by the
Virginian's kicking the cook off the train; how, as we journeyed, the
dark bubble of mutiny swelled hourly beneath my eyes; and how, when it
was threatening I know not what explosion, the Virginian had pricked it
with humor, so that it burst in nothing but harmless laughter.

Their eyes followed my narrative: the New Yorkers, because such events
do not happen upon the shores of the Hudson; Mrs. Henry, because she was
my hostess; Miss Wood followed for whatever her reasons were--I couldn't
see her eyes; rather, I FELT her listening intently to the deeds and
dangers of the man she didn't care to tame. But it was the eyes of the
Judge and th