your behalf. I like
your manners. And I know now what's in your mind! You think it will be
very easy for me to find somebody else as a guide--and you're quite sure
that you can't give up your responsibility for a woman's whim."

The drive master owned to himself that she had called the turn.

"I'll continue with my frankness, Mr. Latisan. It's rather more than a
guide I'm looking for on that man-to-man plane I have mentioned. You can
readily understand. I need good advice about land. Therefore, mine is
not exactly a whim, any more than your present determination to go on
with your job is a whim. This matter has come to us very suddenly.
Suppose we think it over. We'll have another talk. At any rate, you can
advise me in regard to other men."

She rose and extended her hand. "We can be very good friends, I trust."

He took her hand in a warm clasp. "I'll do what I can--be sure of that."

"I feel very much alone all of a sudden. I'm depending on you. You're
not going back to the drive right away, are you?" she asked, anxiously.

"I'll be held here for a day or so." The matter of the dynamite was on
his mind.

"Good!" she said, and patted his arm when he turned to leave the room.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Latisan took the forenoon train down from Adonia to the junction the
next day. He was keeping his own counsel about his intent.

He had done some busy thinking during the evening after he left the new
star boarder in her parlor. In spite of his efforts to confine his
attention, in his thoughts, to business, he could not keep his mind
wholly off her attractive personality and her peculiar proposition. He
was obliged to whip up his wrath in order to get solidly down to the
Flagg affairs.

By the time he went to sleep he knew that he was determinedly ugly.
There was the slur of Flagg about his slack efficiency in meeting the
schemes of Craig. There was the ireful consciousness that the
narrow-gauge folks were giving him a raw deal on that dynamite matter.
They had hauled plenty of explosive for the Comas--for Craig. To admit
at the outset of his career on the Noda that he could not get what the
Three C's folks were getting--to advertise his impotency by making a
twenty-mile tote trip over slushy and rutted roads--was a mighty poor
send-off as a boss, he told himself. He knew what sort of tattle would
pursue him.

The stout young man--that "drummer"--was at the station. Latisan was
uncomfortably conscious that t