over, too, in case
there might be doings. What's the row, Joe?"

Joe took him ungently by the elbow, turned him about and started him up
the rise.

"An old grudge," he deigned an ungracious explanation. "It's years and
years old. Steve licked him once. Once when they were boys the folks
that live down next to Allison's dressed Steve up like a picture-book,
the nearest I can make out, and sent him to town a-shoppin'. Harrigan,
he----"

"I know! I remember!" Garry's eager whisper interrupted. "That is, I
didn't know that Harrigan was one of the mob Steve whipped that day.
But that wasn't what I meant. Who was the--the girl Harrigan was
talking about, when Steve--when Steve----"

Joe's fingers tightened a little as the other evinced a tendency to lag.

"Hurry a bit, will you?" he urged complainingly.

"Show a little speed! I'm supposed to be up there asleep." And then,
gruffly: "It was the Allison girl, of course."

In spite of the hand upon his elbow Garrett Devereau stopped short in
his tracks.

"Barbara!" he stammered. "Barbara Allison? Joe, was that the girl he
meant to-night, when he said he was going to 'marry one of those women
himself?'"

Joe peered at him, trying to make out the expression upon his face.

"Why not?" he wanted to know. "Why not? Ain't he good enough for her?"

There came a pause--then Garry's stunned rejoinder.

"Good enough!" he repeated senselessly. "Good enough?" He laughed
half wildly, as though he had suddenly hit upon a very funny thought
indeed. "That man in love with a girl like her. . . . Good Lord!"

And Fat Joe, who had failed to understand, swore again beneath his
breath because there was no time left in which to argue the matter.
His face was still very red from his struggle for self-restraint, and
his whole mental balance so disturbed that he forgot entirely to
conceal the blued revolver dangling in one hand when he re-entered the
cabin a moment later. The latter object ruined the effect of his
insouciant rendition of "Home, Sweet Home."

"Thought you were going to retire, Joe?"

Steve was already undressed and crawling into bed. His question was
slow-worded and a trifle stifled.

"I was," Joe assured him hastily. "I was. I just stepped out to see
that everything was tight and tidy for the night, that's all."

Quizzical eyes contemplated the revolver now.

"Taken to carrying a weapon, after all, eh? Well, perhaps that's
wisest. And blo