swift, deft movements.

“Why don’t you say something, Beth?” he asked after a moment. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Now you can eat with me,” she said. She had made him as comfortable as possible, and returned to the stove.

He took the plate of food she handed him. “I know I shouldn’t have stopped, Beth—but I couldn’t do anything else, could I?”

“How did you know I was alone?” She knew what he was going to answer, and it frightened her.

“I saw your stepfather in Rocky Gulch this afternoon—no, wait, listen Beth—I’d tell you, wouldn’t I, if anything had happened?”

He went on impetuously, as though to dispel her rising fear.

“He was drunk, Beth, and he’s too old a man. Look at that”—he clenched his fist, and the muscles of his bared forearm rose up in knots—“I could have twisted his neck with that for what he said about me and you. But I promised I wouldn’t lift a hand to him, and I didn’t, no matter what he said. I didn’t mean to meet him—and then—when he said what he did I—well, I just listened and beat it, that’s all.”

The boy shoved his food away from him untouched, and looked across the table to meet Beth’s frightened eyes.

“Don’t you worry, kid,” he added reassuringly, “I won’t hurt him, and he can’t hurt me—except with his gun.” The girl shuddered, and he hastened to add:

“He wouldn’t do that, Beth. Don’t you think it for a minute! Even when he’s drunk he wouldn’t do that—he’s too much of a coward—he knows he’d swing for it.”

“He said he would, Tom.”

“He said he would if I come up here again. I didn’t come, did I?”

It was a month now since her stepfather in drunken rage had ordered Tom from the house and threatened to shoot him if he ever came there again. But after all, he had to come tonight, as things happened. And her stepfather was away—the first time he had been away in months—and he need never know that Tom had been here.

“He won’t be back until tomorrow—you’ll be gone then,” said Beth, voicing her thoughts.

Her words seemed to rouse the boy to sudden anger. “Why should he forbid my seeing you, anyway?” he went on, resentfully. “I love you, Beth, and 

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