hing," Sally declared. "I wouldn't be
surprised if pop didn't pull out some time and beat it for the West. It
must be awful tame for a man who's stuck pistols into the faces of
express messengers and made bank tellers hand out their cash to settle
down in a place like this where there's nothing much to do but go to
church and prayer meeting. I don't know how many men pop's killed in his
time but there must be quite a bunch. But pop doesn't seem to worry
much. It seems to me if I'd ever pumped a man full of lead I'd have a
bad case of insomnia."

"Well, I don't know," remarked Archie, weighing the point judicially. "I
suppose you get used to it in time. Your father seems very gentle. You
probably exaggerate the number of his--er--homicides."

He felt himself utterly unqualified to express with any adequacy his
sympathy for a girl whose father had flirted with the gallows so
shamelessly. Walker had courageously entered express cars and jumped
into locomotive cabs in the pursuit of his calling and this was much
nobler than shooting a man in the back. Sally would probably despise him
if she knew what he had done.

She demurred to his remark about her father's amiability.

"Well, pop can be pretty rough sometimes. He and I have our little
troubles."

"Nothing serious, I'm sure. I can't imagine any one being unkind to you,
Sally."

"It's nice of you to say that. But I'm not perfect and I don't pretend
to be!"

Sympathy and tenderness surged within him at this absurd suggestion that
any one could harbor a doubt of Sally's perfection. Her modesty, the
tone of her voice called for some more concrete expression of his
understanding than he could put into words. Her hand, dimly discernible
in the dusk of the June stars, was invitingly near. He clasped and held
it, warm and yielding. She drew it away in a moment but not rebukingly.
The contact with her hand had been inexpressibly thrilling. Not since
his prep school days had he held a girl's hand, and the brook and the
stars sang together in ineffable chorus. It was bewildering to find that
so trifling an act could afford sensations so charged with all the
felicity of forbidden delight.

"I wonder," she said presently; "I wonder whether you would--whether you
really would do something for me?"

"Anything in my power," he declared hoarsely.

"What time is it?" she asked with a jarring return to practical things.

She bent her head close as he held a match to his watch.