“Fiddlesticks! What’ll they say? What can they say if you stay up here with me? It’ll be only a day or two till Dad gets home. It’s just that you’ve been getting notions from Justin. He’s a city man and doesn’t know our ways. But you’ve always lived here, Lon. I’m surprised at you.” “O’ course there ain’t any real harm in yore stayin,” he conceded hesitantly. “I’ll be here to look after you an’ see Prowers don’t trouble you. An’ it won’t be long.” “I’m staying because I really can help, Lon. Justin thinks it’s only foolishness, but you know it isn’t. In Denver, where he lives, there are plenty of trained nurses, but it’s different here. If Bridget could get in, I wouldn’t say a word about staying. But she can’t. If I went away and left this poor boy, you’d never respect me again.” “I would, too. But there. You’re gonna stay. I see that.” “Yes, I am.” She caught the lapels of the big foreman’s coat and coaxed him with the smile that always had proved effective with him. “And you know I’m right. Don’t you, Lon?” “Nothin’ of the kind,” he blustered. “An’ you needn’t try to come it over me. I know you too blamed well, miss. You’re bound an’ determined to have yore own way--always were since you were a li’l’ trick knee-high to a duck. Trouble is, you’ve been spoiled.” “Yes,” she admitted, “and you did it.” “No such a thing. I always did tell Clint he’d find out some day what’d come of lettin’ you boss the whole works.” To save his face he finished with a peremptory order. “Don’s fixin’ up some supper. Soon as you’ve had yours, why, you’ll go right straight to bed. Doc an’ me are aimin’ to look after Hollister to-night.” “Yes, Lon,” Betty replied meekly. She had got what she wanted, and she was willing to propitiate him by a demure obedience calculated to remove the sting of her victory. Don opened the door and announced that supper was ready. Betty saw Merrick’s eye flash a question at Forbes as they came into the larger room. She went directly to him. Betty was a woman; therefore complex. But she usually expressed herself simply. “It’s all settled, Justin. Lon is going to stay with me.” He made no answer in words, but his salient jaw set grimly. Like many masterful men, he did not relish defeat. They drank coffee from tin cups and ate bacon, tomatoes, and beans served in tin plates. Don’s biscuits were appetizing, and four or five pans of them disappeared before his guests were fed. Betty lived up to the promise she had made Lon. She whispered with Dr. Rayburn for a minute, then said “Good-night” to the company generally, and vanished into her bedroom. The day had been a full one. To come in over the snow had taxed the strength of her muscles. She was tired, and, as she sat before the glowing coals taking the pins out of her hair, she yawned luxuriously.