“Yep: I’m on,” observed her youthful admirer, enlightened. “Mr. Wade on the School Board made us a talk Sat’day, about ordeals. Said each one of us should adopt a high ordeal and stick to it. If you’re one, and I got to do it, I choose to adopt you.” “Buddy,” said his rival. “Yep?” “Will you sell out your claim for a dime?” “No, _sir!_” “For a quarter?” “Nope.” “Foradol--” “Quit! No fair!” protested Mr. Higman in a voice of poignant agony. “You’re right. It is n’t fair. Shake, old boy.” Young Mr. Robson gravely shook young Burton Higman by the hand. “Between you and me, only honorable and knightly rivalry. We’ll go fishing some day and talk over high ordeals and other matters close to the heart.” “And at present Buddy and I will map out the attack upon the asparagus,” said the girl. She turned away, with a smile of dismissal for her informal caller. As he took himself off, Marcia Ames turned to her other admirer. “Well, Buddy. What do you think of him?” “He’s a nut,” was the prompt and uncompromising decision. “So bad? If it is bad. What is a nut?” “Plumb crazy.” “You think so? Perhaps, a little.” “Plumb!” persisted the other jealously. But the innate and responsive fair-mindedness of youth prompted him to add: “But, say! When he kinda smiles that way at ye, it’s all off. There’s nothin’ to it. It gets you. Ain’t it true?” inquired Buddy earnestly. The unanalytical Buddy was flattered, thrilled, and faintly puzzled by the instant response to this speech when, laughing, his goddess caught him in a quick, warm little hug. He did n’t wholly understand why she did it. For that matter, neither did she. CHAPTER IV GOLF boots?” said Eli Wade, Boot & Shoe Surgeon. “Fer the young lady at Miss Pritchard’s? Right here.” He held them up to his own admiration. “A foot that’s _right_” said the Boot & Shoe Surgeon. “Right _and_ light. Honest wear on them boots. Even as a die. No sloppy, slovenly running down at one side of the heel. The wearer of them boots carries her weight square an’ level, she does. She stands straight an’ she walks straight. Yes, an’ she talks you straight, an’ looks you straight in the eye. Why did n’t she come for ’em herself, same as she brung ’em? Not ailin’, is she?” “I was going by this way, so I stopped in to save time,” said Jeremy Robson. “You’re welcome. But I’d ruther she’d come, herself. We had a good talk, her an’ me, when she brung in the boots.” He wrapped them up clumsily but carefully. “A good operation,” stated the Boot & Shoe Surgeon. “An _extry_ good operation. But no extry charge.” A figure stirred in a long canvas chair in the corner. From it came a mutter in which the words “Scab-work” in a contemptuous tone were alone comprehensible. The figure reared a white-thatched head, and a keen, lined face, above a sinewy neck set upon a spare frame. “Rich, ain’t she?” said the figure. “Let her pay extry, then, for extry work.”