disclosed her neat ankles.

"You preferred McGee to me," he said grimly. "I didn't blame you."

"Who said I PREFERRED him?" she retorted quickly. "Much you know!"
Then, with swift feminine abandonment of her position, she added, with a
little laugh, "It's all the same whether you're guarded with a rifle or
a Church Presbytery, only"--

"Only what?" said Madison earnestly.

"There's men who'd risk being SHOT for a girl, that couldn't stand
psalm-singin' palaver."

The quick expression of pain that passed over his hard, dark face seemed
only to heighten her pretty mischievousness. But he simply glanced again
around the solitude, passed his hand over his wet sleeve, and said, "I
must go now; your husband wouldn't like me being here."

"He's workin' in the claim,--the claim YOU gave him," said Mrs. McGee,
with cheerful malice. "Wonder what he'd say if he knew it was given to
him by the man who used to spark his wife only two years ago? How does
that suit your Christian conscience, Mad?"

"I should have told him, had I not believed that everything was over
between us, or that it was possible that you and me should ever meet
again," he returned, in a tone so measured that the girl seemed to hear
the ring of the conventicle in it.

"Should you, BROTHER Wayne?" she said, imitating him. "Well, let me tell