k."

"He's had the best opportunities of any man who's come into the
country."

"Anyway," she faltered, "they haven't a penny except when they sell
something."

He shrugged a shoulder, then asked teasingly:

"Well--what were you thinking of doing about it?"

"I said--I promised," she blurted it out bluntly, "that we'd loan them
money."

"What!" incredulously.

"I did, Uncle Joe."

He answered with a frown of annoyance:

"You exceeded your authority, Katie."

"But you will, won't you?" she pleaded. "You've never refused me
anything that I really wanted badly, and I've never asked much, have I?"

"No, girl, you haven't," he replied gently. "And there's hardly anything
you could ask, within reason, that wouldn't be granted."

"But they only need five hundred until he gets into something. You could
let them have that, couldn't you?"

His face and eyes hardened.

"I could, but I won't," he replied curtly.

When Prouty was in its infancy, certain citizens had been misled by
Mormon Joe's mild eyes, low voice and quiet manner. His easy-going
exterior concealed an incredible hardness upon occasions, but this was
Kate's first knowledge of it. He never had displayed the slightest
authority. In any difference, when he had not yielded to her
good-naturedly, they had argued it out as though they were in reality
partners. At another time she would have been wounded by his brusque
refusal, but to-night it angered her. Because of her intense eagerness
and confidence that she had only to ask him, it came as the keenest of
disappointments. This together with her fatigue combined to produce a
display of temper as unusual in her as Mormon Joe's own attitude.

"But I promised!" she cried, impatiently. "And you've told me I must
always keep my promise, 'if it takes the hide'!"

"You exceeded your authority," he reiterated. "You've no right to
promise what doesn't belong to you."

"Then it's all 'talk' about our being partners," she said, sneeringly.
"You don't mean a word of it."

"You shan't make a fool of yourself, Katie, if I can help it," he
retorted.

"Because you don't care for friends, you don't want me to have any!" she
flung at him hotly.

He was silent a long time, thinking, while she waited angrily, then he
responded quietly and with obvious effort:

"That's where you're mistaken, Katie. If I have one regret it is that in
the past I have not more deliberately cultivated the friendship of true
men and