on, "that I was disappointed sore on not meeting Dave here to-night."

Lon served supper at one end of the table of whip-sawed spruce, and we
fell to eating. A howling of the dogs took the woman to the door. She
opened it an inch and listened.

"Where is Dave Walsh?" I asked, in an undertone.

"Dead," Lon answered. "In hell, maybe. I don't know. Shut up."

"But you just said that you expected to meet him here to-night," I
challenged.

"Oh, shut up, can't you," was Lon's reply, in the same cautious
undertone.

The woman had closed the door and was returning, and I sat and meditated
upon the fact that this man who told me to shut up received from me a
salary of two hundred and fifty dollars a month and his board.

Lon washed the dishes, while I smoked and watched the woman. She seemed
more beautiful than ever--strangely and weirdly beautiful, it is true.
After looking at her steadfastly for five minutes, I was compelled to
come back to the real world and to glance at Lon McFane. This enabled me
to know, without discussion, that the woman, too, was real. At first I
had taken her for the wife of Dave Walsh; but if Dave Walsh were dead, as
Lon had said, then she could be only his widow.

It was early to bed, for we faced a long day on the morrow; and as Lon
crawled in beside me under the blankets, I ventured a question.