"Nasty?" broke in Ellis in quick alarm. "You didn't shoot a skunk, did you?"

She ignored her husband and persisted: "Tell me why you shot that fox, Dick. You have been out hunting nearly every day for two weeks and have shot nothing else, so I know you have a reason."

"I'm not going to help eat it!" Ellis broke in. "I've heard they are stringy—and a bit smelly."

"Ellis, will you stop being ridiculous? Dick, why have you hunted that fox so long?"

Ellis had seen that Terry was not to be pumped, that this was another of his queer quests. He tried again to shunt Susan away.

"Maybe it was a personal matter between him and the fox, Sue."

She turned on him a look she endeavored to make disdainful, but only succeeded in raising another laugh from both. But she was not to be deterred. Her eyes lit with sudden inspiration.

"I'll bet—I'll bet anything—" she began.

"Susan Terry Crofts! Even Dick would not bet on Sunday!"

"I will bet anything," she insisted, "that it is something for Deane—for Christmas!"

In the slight flush that rose in her brother's face[Pg 8] Susan learned that she had hit the mark. But she was instantly sorry that she had pressed the issue, as she had learned long before to respect what was to her his queer reticence.

[Pg 8]

Ellis hurried into the breach: "Wonder what Bruce will give Deane this Christmas? He is about due to present her with something really worth while—like a patent mop!"

Even Terry laughed. The struggle for Deane's favor between Bruce Ballard and Terry had been in progress nearly ten years and had become one of the town's institutions. The first formal offerings tendered by the two boys on the occasion of her graduation from high school typified the contrasting characters of the rivals: Terry, idealistic, impressionable, reserved, had sent her a beautiful copy of the "Love Letters of a Musician," while Bruce, sincere, obvious and practical, had given her a hat-pin.

On her succeeding birthday Terry, after a six-hour climb, had won for her a box of trailing arbutus from Mount Defiance's cool top; Bruce had sent her candy. 

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