ed her. She felt also the latent strength of character beneath
the ingenuous surface, and the girl's courage and self-reliance drew her
in her own trembling uncertainty at this period, like a magnet.

Mrs. Toomey's impulses were more often kind than otherwise, and she
would have liked nothing better than to have gone to Kate in this
crisis, for she believed thoroughly in Kate's innocence and guessed how
much she needed a woman's friendship. Mrs. Toomey had a rather active
conscience and it troubled her.

Naturally, she had not forgotten the "handshake agreement" which was to
cement their friendship, but she argued that as Kate had not been able
to fulfill her share of it she could not be expected to live up to her
end, since it would mean opposition from Jap and no benefit to offset
it. But in her heart Mrs. Toomey knew that it was not Jap she feared so
much as the disapproval of Mrs. Abram Pantin.

Toomey was brooding as usual, when footsteps were heard on the wooden
sidewalk and a sharp rap followed.

Mrs. Toomey was kneading bread on the kitchen table. Toomey had sold a
pair of silver sugar tongs to a cowpuncher who opined that they were the
very thing he had been looking for with which to eat oysters. The
slipperiness of a raw oyster annoyed and embarrassed him, so he
purchased the tongs gladly, and the sack of flour which resulted gave
Mrs. Toomey a feeling of comparative security while it lasted.

She called through the doorway:

"You go, Jap. I'm busy."

He arose mechanically, opened the door, started back, then stepped out
and closed it after him. At the kitchen table Mrs. Toomey saw the
pantomime and was curious.

The sound of voices raised in altercation followed. She recognized that
of Teeters.

"I tell you it is, Toomey! I'll swear to it! I'd know it anywhere
because of that peculiarity!"

She could not catch the words of a second speaker, but the tone was
equally aggressive and unfriendly.

"Then prove it!" Toomey's voice was shrill with excitement and defiant.

They all lowered their voices abruptly as though they had been
admonished, but the tones reached her, alternately threatening,
argumentative, even pleading.

What in the world was it all about, she wondered as she kneaded.

For twenty minutes or more it lasted, and then Teeters' voice came
clearly, vibrating with contempt as well as purpose:

"You got a yellow streak a yard wide and if it takes the rest of our
natural life Lingle