the liberal code of the border."

"Extremely kind of you to enter my rooms uninvited, and furnish me with
this list of moral deficiencies," acknowledged the other with affected
carelessness. "But thus far you have failed to tell me anything
strikingly new. Am I to understand you have some particular object in
this exchange of amenities?"

"Most assuredly. It is to ask if such a person as you practically
confess yourself to be--homeless, associating only with the most
despicable and vicious characters, and leading so uncertain and
disreputable a life--can be fit to assume charge of a girl, almost a
woman, and mould her future?"

For a long, breathless moment Hampton stared incredulously at his
questioner, crushing his cigar between his teeth. Twice he started to
speak, but literally choked back the bitter words burning his lips,
while an uncontrollable admiration for the other's boldness began to
overcome his first fierce anger.

"By God!" he exclaimed at last, rising to his feet and pointing toward
the door. "I have shot men for less. Go, before I forget your cloth.
You little impudent fool! See here--I saved that girl from death, or
worse; I plucked her from the very mouth of hell; I like her; she 's
got sand; so far as I know there is not a single soul for her to turn
to for help in all this wide world. And you, you miserable, snivelling
hypocrite, you little creeping Presbyterian parson, you want me to
shake her! What sort of a wild beast do you suppose I am?"

Wynkoop had taken one hasty step backward, impelled to it by the fierce