"Oh, that isn't it! It's the slack way Brophy runs it. The help question! Martin does the best he knows how, but he finds it hard to keep table girls here in the woods. Has to keep falling back on his nephew, and the nephew isn't interested in the waiter job. Wants to follow his regular line." "And what's that?" she asked, holding to a safe topic. "Running Dave's stable. Nephew says the horses can't talk back." She stopped and faced him. "Do you think the landlord would hire me as a waitress?" She had come to Adonia in haste, leaving her plans to hazard. Now she was obeying sudden inspiration. If she had slapped him across the face she could not have provoked more astonishment and dismay than his countenance showed. "I have done much waiting at tables." She grimly reflected on the cafes where she had sought the most for her money. "I'm not ashamed to confess it." He stammered before he was able to control his voice. "It isn't that. You ought to be proud to work. I mean I'm glad--no, what I mean is I don't understand why--why----" "Why I have come away up here for such a job?" "I haven't the grit to ask any questions of you!" he confessed, plaintively, his memory poignant on that point. The stout "drummer" had been trailing them from the station. When they halted he passed them slowly, staring wide-eyed at the girl, asking her amazed questions with his gaze. She flung the Vose-Mern operative a look of real fury; she had come north in a fighting mood. "I have left the city to escape just such men as that--men who aren't willing to let a girl have a square chance. I lost my last position because I slapped a cheap insulter's face in a hotel dining hall." She looked over Latisan's head when she twisted the truth. "I came north, to the woods, just as far as that railroad would take me. I hate a city!" Then she looked straight at him, and there was a ring of sincerity in her tone. "I'm glad to be where those are!" She pointed to the trees which thatched the slopes of the hills. "You're speaking of friends of mine!" They had stopped, facing each other. Crowley, lashed by looks from the girl and Latisan, had hurried on toward the tavern. Lida knew that the drive master was having hard work to digest the information she had given him. "They are standing up straight and are honest old chaps," he went on. He was looking into her eyes and his calm voice had a musing tone. "I like to call them my friends." He was trying hard to down the queer notions that were popping up. He would not admit that he was suspecting this girl of deceit. But she was so manifestly not what she claimed that she was! Still, there were reverses that might----