“Oh, no,” said Bill in sprightly tones, “there ain’t room enough for all of us in such a small place.” He walked by her and approached Sam. He had to look up a little to meet Sam’s eyes. The man was tall; his accouterments were neat and his clothes well kept. He had a face that, to the genial and shrewd Budd, seemed as uncommunicative as any a man could boast. It rarely smiled and it rarely displayed emotion. To cap off the expression, Sam was exceedingly sparing of his words. Bill ground his cigarette on the floor and spoke shortly, but to the point. “So Sam’s the monnicker, huh?” “Yeah.” “Huh. Don’t open yore mouth too wide, Sam, or you’ll show a tooth. Shucks, they named you wrong. It ought to be ‘Paralyzed.’” “Yeah?” “Yeah,” affirmed Bill. He stepped back a trifle, teetered on his heels and swung his arms idly, the slate-gray eyes boring into the big fellow. Sam remained unconcerned; his face was perfectly impassive. It irked Bill. He snorted once, twice, and moved out of the door humming a tune to show his perfect indifference. “Oh!” exclaimed the girl. “Did you ever see such an overbearing man?” She looked at her escort a little curiously. “What did you think?” Sam seemed to ponder. “Didn’t want to hit him,” said he lazily; “might hurt him.” “Yes,” responded the girl. Budd, keeping his own counsel as to that eventuality, thought he heard a minor chord of doubt in the girl’s voice. “Well,” said she, “I think we’d better run along and let Mr. Budd alone. It’s getting dark. Supper’s ready.” Budd watched them go across the clearing, the girl waving her hand here and there to friends, the man bending a little under his height and moving as if he had all the time in creation. Finally they parted and disappeared in the shadows. The storekeeper set his shelves in order and cruised to the kitchen to make supper. It was not a complex operation, consisting of slicing a few potatoes into a pan and dropping several strips of bacon alongside to lard the frying. For the main part, Budd’s mind ran along its habitual channels, prying a little here and pondering a little there. What kind of a man was this wooden-faced Sam, anyway? No, not wooden-faced, corrected Budd--poker-faced was the better term. It was not the ordinary thing for a man to value his emotions and expressions so highly that he turned himself into a sphinx. You never could tell about those fellows--whether they wanted to give you a present or sink a slug of lead into you. Budd stirred his coffee and chuckled. Now, Bill was a fellow that wasn’t made to conceal much of anything. He had a fighting face and, to judge from his last speech with Sam, he had a fighting heart. Certainly, he was badly taken with the girl, and she hadn’t found him so distasteful until the last day or two, at which period Sam had ridden into the scene. No, Bill had seemed to be the favored one until a quarrel blew up. What it was Budd didn’t know--or care. He had seen many such spring up--and die away.