It was her habit to utilize any material she chanced to find, and she had really made her summer jaunt to North Carolina in search of material, but she was not thinking of utilizing this girl, as she managed to keep near her during the remainder of the evening. She had merely found something to be keenly interested in, her interest in any human novelty being, on occasion, intense. In this case her interest increased instead of diminished. She found the girl comporting herself in her natural position as belle, with a calm which was slightly suggestive of “the noble savage.” Each admirer seemed to be treated with indifference alike, though there were some who, for reasons best known to themselves, evidently felt that they stood more securely than the rest. She moved through game and dance with a slow yet free grace; she spoke seldom, and in a low, bell-like monotone, containing no hint of any possible emotional development, and for the rest, her shadow of a disdainful smile seemed to stand her in good stead. Clearly as she stood out from among her companions from the first, at the close of the evening she assumed a position actually dramatic. The big young mountaineer, who, despite his discontent, was a very handsome fellow indeed, had held his own against his rivals stubbornly during the evening, but when, after the final dance, he went in search of his charge, he found that he was not first. She had fallen into her old attitude against the wall, her hands behind her, and was listening to the appeal of a brawny youth with a hunting-knife in his belt. “Dusk,” he was saying, “I'm not such a chicken hearted chap as to let a gal go back on me. Ye sed I mout hev yer comp'ny home, 'n' I'm a-gwine to hev it, Dave Humes or no Dave Humes.” Dusk merely smiled tolerantly. “Are ye?” she said. Rebecca Noble, who stood within a few feet of them, was sure that the lover who approached was the Dave Humes in question, he advanced with such an angry stride, and laying his hand on his rival's shoulder, turned him aside so cavalierly. “No he aint,” he put in; “not an' me about. I brought ye, an' I'll take ye home, Lodusky, or me and him 'll settle it.” The other advanced a step, looking a trifle pale and disheveled. He placed himself square in front of Lodusky. “Dusk Dunbar,” he said, “you're the one to settle it. Which on us is a-gwine home with ye--me or him? Ye haint promised the two of us, hev ye?” There was certainly a suddenly lit spark of exultation in the girl's coolly dropped eyes. “Settle it betwixt ye,” she answered with her exasperating half smile again. They had attracted attention by this time, and were becoming the centre figures of a group of lookers-on. The first had evidently lost his temper. She was the one who should settle it, he proclaimed loudly again. She had promised one man her “comp'ny” and had come with another. There was so much fierce anger in his face that Miss Noble drew a little nearer, and felt her own blood warmed.