Salomy Jane started.

"Here I'm askin' ye if ye've see that hound Phil Larrabee sneaking by
yer to-day?"

Salomy Jane had not. But she became interested and self-reproachful
for she knew that Phil Larrabee was one of her father's enemies. "He
wouldn't dare to go by here unless he knew you were out," she said
quickly.

"That's what gets me," he said, scratching his grizzled head. "I've
been kind o' thinkin' o' him all day, and one of them Chinamen said he
saw him at Sawyer's Crossing. He was a kind of friend o' Pete's wife.
That's why I thought yer might find out ef he'd been there." Salomy
Jane grew more self-reproachful at her father's self-interest in her
"neighborliness." "But that ain't all," continued Mr. Clay. "Thar was
tracks over the far pasture that warn't mine. I followed them, and
they went round and round the house two or three times, ez ef they
mout hev bin prowlin', and then I lost 'em in the woods again. It's
just like that sneakin' hound Larrabee to hev bin lyin' in wait for me
and afraid to meet a man fair and square in the open."

"You just lie low, dad, for a day or two more, and let me do a little
prowlin'," said the girl, with sympathetic indignation in her dark
eyes. "Ef it's that skunk, I'll spot him soon enough and let you know
whar he's hiding."

"You'll just stay where ye are, Salomy," said her father decisively.
"This ain't no woman's work--though I ain't sayin' you haven't got