a-listening? Keep the music going." He tested the knife, found it to be in working order, then, as if his occupation had been his real reason for granting a cessation of the destruction, said firmly, "These trees belong to the company. They was boughten months back. Hit it up, fellows!"

His leadership was indisputable, for at his command the blades in the trees hacked downward and the bleeding gashes grew. And the rowdy, but apparently necessary songs, commenced again.

66

The activity and confusion had the effect of hedging the two chief belligerents around with privacy-as though they were having a ballroom chat in a corner. 'Belong to the company'?" she repeated, daunted for a second. His entertained expression enlightened her. "You are not telling the truth," she accused, "and you know it. This land is mine."

"Then you've only got to prove it, haven't you?" he asked carelessly.

"Yes, and the proof will be easy!"

"But slow," he pointed out, with insolent truth. The law's slowness was the reason for his lack of concern. To Cal Tandy the law was a grand machine for furnishing respite to the guilty by saddling the innocent with the burden of confirmation. "By the time the law has given you back your trees I'll be through wanting them."

"Maybe, but I won't be through with you, Calhoun Tandy!"

"I'm sure pleased to hear that, Annie Laurie McAllister."

"I can still have this robbery punished!"

"Ye es ?""

"Yes! do you suppose I don't know better than to

think that a band of miscreants can destroy my property and go scot-free?"

that

"No-o. But we 'miscreants' scatter mighty lively when the time's ripe. And after you've collected us, some years from now, will it be so easy to prove we's the ones? No-o. I see from your face that you think my way at last. So I reckon we miscreants will go on and take our chance today."

"Then take it at your risk," she warned. "This land is mine and I'll protect it."

"How?" gently taunted Cal. He was losing interest. "With this."

She drew her six-shooter.

"A girl and a gun," mentioned Cal Tandy casually. It was as he would have mentioned a baby and its rattle.

"A girl who can use a gun," she corrected, able now to do a little smiling herself. There is no sex about a six-shooter. "See that pail?" She aimed and pulled the trigger. The pail kicked itself from the spike and hit the ground. Cal's reawakened interest flared up. As for his men, the shot had acted upon them like a noon whistle. Admirable quiet had fallen. Laurie's remarks had no difficulty in being heard. "See that man's cap that he has thrown on a bush?" She fired again and the cap slumped dismally with a double hole through its crown. "Now I'll shoot for somebody's

knife."

At this every man but Calhoun Tandy jerked himself behind a tree.

"Shoot for mine," he said, as angrily cool as she. With the desire to bluff by defiance he extended the arm whose hand held the broad-bladed tool.

Put on her mettle the girl swung the gun around and took extra careful aim. Her deliberation seemed like

hesitancy, and Calhoun laughed. Then the knife was shot from his hand.

He let his tingling arm go slowly back to his side.

"I couldn't 'a' done better myself," he commented, deeply drawing his suspended breath. His lean, powerful chest heaved curiously once or twice, and there was an eager something in his face that conclusively proved his sensations to be not those of cowardice.

"Say, boss, wot we better do?" droned someone invisible. "She's got three shots left, and ef we come out, zing! she'll nick an ear, zowee! and she'll git an eye."

"You are perfectly right," exhilaratedly announced Laurie to this unseen one. Her cheeks were pink, and she held the gun in readiness with a steady hand.

"You must quit, fellows," drawled Cal Tandy, keeping his eyes fixed upon the girl's face. "Quit and go. I want to have a parley with the enemy."

The men reappeared, indulging in much grotesque, good-natured pantomime of being terrorized, but they gathered up their belongings and sauntered off, stamping out their fires as they came to them.

"Don't you ever shoot at a knife again," then ordered Cal Tandy masterfully. "You're like to kill yourself if you do."

"Myself?" she asked serenely.

"That's what I said. I've not got over being scared for you yet."

"I am able to do my own worrying, Mr. Tandy." "It's late in the day to mister me," he reminded her, registering his point with another of his enhancing smiles. "You've called me by my first name twice.”

"Let us keep to the point of the parley-will I have to get out an injunction against you, or have I suffi

ciently established my right to the woods and my ability to guard them? For, after I shoot one of your men here and kill him, there won't be the least difficulty about my 'collecting' him afterwards, will there?"

He turned away his head to hide a sudden spasm of laughter. Cal Tandy did not mind being caught laughing out of devilry, but he considered it unmanly to be caught laughing out of mere amusement. Then he bethought himself of a retaliation which might harass, and he employed it.

"Have you'uns a license to carry a gun and to shoot?"

"In this country when a girl has cause to shoot she owns all the license she needs. But tell me about my woods, please are you going to keep out of them?" "I'm going to keep my men out of them."

"That's wise."

"But not because you popped a little gun. It's because you talk spunky and look pretty and shoot straight." He dropped his heavy lids over his eyes in practical illustration of the fact that the scenery did not count so long as she filled his range of view, and he lowered his voice to that subtle notch in the man scale that accompanies passages of endearment. "Yes, talk spunky and look pretty and shoot straight— three things I admire in a girl. I admire your name too; I like to say it-Laurie. And now I'll tell you something elseelse"

you

"You needn't," she said, feeling fear for the first time, for she knew herself to be suddenly defenseless even with three shots left. One cannot fire a bullet through a compliment. "We've told each other enough. I am finished with you now, and I am going."

She turned on her heel and endeavored to make her

word good, but he detained her by unceremoniously putting his hand on her arm. The strong touch was not yet a grasp, but she knew it would become so if she did not stop and listen for the "something else." She therefore paused and pantingly awaited it.

She wondered why this sinewy giant of a mountaineer, not being angered by restraint as she was, should himself be breathing heavily. She objected to seeing the regular heave of his chest under the rough shirt, too open at the neck to be decent on a man. Physical exhibits of masculine strength-which she had often paid gate-money for and viewed delightedly from a grand stand-were offensively disturbing close to. The heart of Cal Tandy was a dynamo engine that worked the belts and wheels of a very busy factory. That it should shake the frame a bit now and then, under stress of extra labor, was to be expected.

"The something else is this-when I find time I'll drop in on you-uns, to see more of you," he finished calmly.

She shook his hand from her arm and faced him with dignity.

"In my part of the world gentlemen never call on a lady till she invites them," she cuttingly stated.

His answer to this was given with an especially flashing smile. A lock of his wet-looking black hair had fallen into his eyes, and he shook it back into place with an arrogant toss of his head.

"Mebbe so, but my part of the world is Georgia. There the men do the courting."