“Huh? I didn’t!”

“You did! You called me a dam-somethin’——”

“Oho! Fair damosel? Why, that’s an old-fashioned compliment—means ‘beautiful girl,’ or something like that. Would you rather be called a cross-eyed old maid?”

“No!” The word snapped. But she smiled in spite of herself.

“You must be a furriner to talk like that,” she added. “Why don’t you say what you mean? Dam-o-sell—that ain’t a name to call folks by. It’s ’most the same as what mom calls me.”

“What’s that?”

“Dambrat.”

He regarded her a moment in silence.

“Your mother calls you a brat?” he slowly asked then.

“Brat—and lots of other things,” she nodded. “And now I’ve got to git home. I’ll git a good hidin’, I shouldn’t wonder, but I won’t stay here——”

“You will!” came his incisive contradiction. “You’ll stay here until that foot is doctored and you’ve had some food. Sit down!”

At the crisp crackle of his command she eyed him in surprised defiance. Her chin lifted, and she took a combative step on the hurt foot. Pallor and pain swept again across her face, and she staggered. He[27] promptly picked her up, squirming and resisting; set her down on the blankets, and inexorably held her there. Then, his eyes boring into hers, he spoke in cool determination.

[27]

“Behave yourself. Listen to me.

“You’re not going away until I say so. I’ll not say so until you’re better able to travel. You won’t be able to travel until that ankle is reduced. It won’t be reduced until I’ve worked on it. That’s all there is to that.

“Now about me. I’m no detective. I am Douglas Hampton, a rover, a drifter, with no home and no folks. I’ve been in quite a few places, done quite a few things; but I’ve never been a detective and I don’t intend to be one. My last job was as reporter on a New York newspaper, and I lasted almost a year. Got fired last week because the city editor rode me too hard and I sat him down in his own waste-basket. Now I’m in here 

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