hat
did you say?"

"I did not hit him, sir. I said nothing more. And there was a lady
present."

Flagg choked and struggled with words before he could speak. "Do you
mean to tell me you're allowing any ladee"--he put exquisite inflection
of sarcasm on the word--"to stand betwixt you and your duty, when that
duty is plain? Latisan, they tell me that you're a sapgag where women
are concerned. I'm told that you have been down to the city and----"

"Mr. Flagg, we'll stick to the subject of the dynamite!" broke in the
young man, sharply.

"Women are the same thing and belong in the talk."

"Then we'll stick to the dynamite that comes in boxes." Latisan was just
as peremptory as the master and was hurrying his business; he felt the
dog of the Latisan temperament slipping neck from the leash. "You may
have been able to make 'em haul dynamite for you, in spite of the law. I
can't make 'em, it seems. I'm here merely to report, and to say that
I'll have the dynamite up from the junction just the same." He started
for the door.

"By tote team--three times the cost! My Gawd! why ain't I out and
around?" lamented the Adonia Jeremiah.

Latisan wanted to say that he would pay the extra cost of transportation
out of his own pocket, if that would save argument, but he did not dare
to trust himself. He hurried out of the big house and slammed the door.

On his way down the hill he was obliged to marshal a small host of
reasons for hanging on to his job; the desire to quit then and there was
looming large, potent, imperative.

He was still scowling when he tramped into the office of the tavern
where many loafers were assembled. Through the haze of tobacco smoke he
saw Martin Brophy beckoning, and went to the desk. Brophy ran his
smutted finger along under a name; "Mrs. Dana Haines Everett, New York
City."

"She has been asking for you. Matter o' business, she says. I've had to
give her the front parlor for her room. Say, she's the kind that gets
what she goes after, I reckon. Is eating her supper served in there
private. Never was done in my tavern before."

"Business--with me?" demanded Latisan. "Brophy, what's her own business
in these parts?"

"Can't seem to find out," admitted the landlord, and the young man
bestowed on Brophy an expansive grin which was a comment on the latter's
well-known penchant for gimleting in search of information. "Will say,
however, that she's a widder--grass if I ain't much mistook--believes