none."

She laughed gaily.

"There are robbers and robbers, you know. I am not afraid of you,
because I am confident you are not the sort of creature that would harm
a woman. Come, talk with me a while. Nobody will disturb us. I am all
alone. My--father caught the night train to New York. The servants are
all asleep. I should like to give you something to eat--women always
prepare midnight suppers for the burglars they catch, at least they
do in the magazine stories. But I don't know where to find the food.
Perhaps you will have something to drink?"

He hesitated, and did not reply; but she could see the admiration for
her growing in his eyes.

"You're not afraid?" she queried. "I won't poison you, I promise. I'll
drink with you to show you it is all right."

"You sure are a surprise package of all right," he declared, for the
first time lowering the weapon and letting it hang at his side. "No one
don't need to tell me ever again that women-folks in cities is afraid.
You ain't much--just a little soft pretty thing. But you've sure got the
spunk. And you're trustful on top of it. There ain't many women, or men
either, who'd treat a man with a gun the way you're treating me."

She smiled her pleasure in the compliment, and her face, was very
earnest as she said:

"That is because I like your appearance. You are too decent-looking a
man to be a robber. You oughtn't to do such things. If you are in bad
luck you should go to work. Come, put away that nasty revolver and let
us talk it over. The thing for you to do is to work."

"Not in this burg," he commented bitterly. "I've walked two inches off
the bottom of my legs trying to find a job. Honest, I was a fine large
man once... before I started looking for a job."

The merry laughter with which she greeted his sally obviously pleased
him, and she was quick to note and take advantage of it. She moved
directly away from the door and toward the sideboard.

"Come, you must tell me all about it while I get that drink for you.
What will it be? Whisky?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, as he followed her, though he still carried
the big revolver at his side, and though he glanced reluctantly at the
unguarded open door.

She filled a glass for him at the sideboard.

"I promised to drink with you," she said hesitatingly. "But I don't like
whisky. I... I prefer sherry."

She lifted the sherry bottle tentatively for his consent.

"Sure," he answered, with a nod. "Whisky's a