“It wasn't anything,” said Grant shortly, tugging at a boot. “Ah--there was, too! What was it you shot at?” Clark joined in the argument from the blackness under the locust tree. “The moon,” Grant told him sullenly. “There wasn't anything else that I could see.” “And that's a lie,” Gene amended, with the frankness of a foster-brother. “Something yelled like--” “You never heard a screech-owl before, did you, Gene?” Grant crept between his blankets and snuggled down, as if his mind held nothing more important than sleep. “Screech-owl my granny! You bumped into something you couldn't handle--if you want to know what _I_ think about it,” Clark guessed shrewdly. “I wish now I'd taken the trouble to hunt the thing down; it didn't seem worth while getting up. But I leave it to Gene if you ain't mad enough to murder whatever it was. What was it?” He waited a moment without getting a reply. “Well, keep your teeth shut down on it, then, darn yuh!” he growled. “That's the Injun of it--I know YOU! Screech-owl--huh! You said when you left it was an Indian--and that's why we didn't take after it ourselves. We don't want to get the whole bunch down on us like they are on you--and if there was one acting up around here, we knew blamed well it was on your account for what happened to-day. I guess you found out, all right. I knew the minute you heaved in sight that you was just about as mad as you can get--and that's saying a whole lot. If it WAS an Indian, and you killed him, you better let us--” “Oh, for the lord's sake, WILL YOU SHUT UP!” Grant raised to an elbow, glared a moment, and lay down again. The result proved the sort of fellow he was. Clark shut up without even trailing off into mumbling to himself, as was his habit when argument brought him defeat. CHAPTER VII. MISS GEORGIE HOWARD, OPERATOR “Where is the delightful Mr. Good Indian off to?” Evadna stopped drumming upon the gatepost and turned toward the person she heard coming up behind her, who happened to be Gene. He stopped to light a match upon the gate and put his cigarette to work before he answered her; and Evadna touched tentatively the wide, blue ribbon wound round her arm and tied in a bow at her elbow, and eyed him guardedly. “Straight up, he told me,” Gene answered sourly. “He's sore over something that happened last night, and he didn't seem to have any talk to give away this morning. He can go to the dickens, for all I care.” “WHAT--happened last night?” Evadna wore her Christmas-angel expression; and her tone was the sweet, insipid tone of childlike innocence. Gene hesitated. It seemed a sheer waste of opportunity to tell her the truth when she would believe a falsehood just as readily; but, since the truth happened to be quite as improbable as a lie, he decided to speak it.