however, that we were looking often her way. I was amazed, too, on
studying her more closely to find that there was something
indefinably queer about her, aside from the marked effect of the
drugs she had been taking. What it was I was at a loss to
determine, but I felt sure from the expression on Kennedy's face
that he had noticed it also.

I was on the point of asking him if he, too, observed anything
queer in the girl, when Armstrong hurried in and handed her a
small package, then almost without a word stalked out again,
evidently as much to Snowbird's surprise as to our own.

She had literally seized the package, as though she were drowning
and grasping at a life buoy. Even the surprise at his hasty
departure could not prevent her, however, from literally tearing
the wrapper off, and in the sheltering shadow of the table cloth
pouring forth the little white pellets in her lap, counting them
as a miser counts his gold,

"The old thief!" she exclaimed aloud. "He's held out twenty-five!"

I don't know which it was that amazed me most, the almost childish
petulance and ungovernable temper of the girl which made her cry
out in spite of her surroundings and the circumstances, or the
petty rapacity of the man who could stoop to such a low level as
to rob her in this seeming underhand manner.

There was no time for useless repining now. The call of outraged
nature for its daily and hourly quota of poison was too
imperative. She dumped the pellets back into the bottle hastily,