The question was ill-timed, for it produced only a haughty, contemptuous shrug in the woman from whom it rebounded. Wakeman did not take his eyes from the fire. They heard the gate-latch click, and then a heavy-booted and spurred foot fell on the entry step. The next instant the door was unceremoniously opened and a tall, lank mountaineer entered. He was at the fag-end of bachelorhood, had sharp, thin features, a small mustache dyed black, and reddish locks which were long and curling. He wore a heavy gray shawl over his shoulders. At first he did not see Wakeman, for his eyes had found employment in trying to discover why Marty had not risen as he came in. He glanced inquiringly at Lucinda, and then he recognized Richard. “My Lord!” he muttered. “I had no idee you--I ‘lowed you--” “I didn’t nuther,” Richard sneered, the red firelight revealing strange flashes in his eyes. For some instants the visitor stood on the hearth awkwardly disrobing his sinewy hands. Finally, unheeding Lucinda’s admonitory glances toward the door, and the prayerful current from her eyes to his, he sat down near Marty. Ten minutes by the clock on the mantelpiece passed, in which time nothing was heard except the lowing of the cattle in the cow-lot and the sizzling of the coals when Richard spat. At last a portion of Wakeman’s wandering self-confidence resettled upon him, and it became him well. He crossed his legs easily, dropped his quid of tobacco into the fire, and with a determined gaze began to prod his squirming rival. “Lookye heer,” he said, suddenly. “What did you come heer fur, anyhow?” Goardley leaned forward and spat between his linked hands. He accomplished it with no slight effort, for the inactivity of his mouth, which was not chewing anything, had produced a hot dryness. “I don’t know,” he managed to say. “I jest thought I’d come around.” “Ride?” “Yes, hoss-back.” “Do you know whar you hitched?” Goardley hesitated and glanced helplessly at Marty, who, stern-faced, inflexible, was looking at the paper in her lap. “I hitched under the cherry-tree out thar,” he answered, with scarcely a touch of self-confidence in his tone. “Well, go unhitch an’ git astraddle of yore animal.” Goardley blinked, but did not rise. “I didn’t have the least idee you had got free, Dick, an’--” “Well, you know it now, so git out to that hoss, ur by all that’s holy--” Mrs. Wakeman drew herself erect and crumpled the paper in her bony hand. “This is my house,” she said, “an’ I ain’t no married woman.” The white fixity of Goardley’s countenance relaxed in a slow grin. An automatic affair it was, but as he took in the situation it was a recognition of the aid which had arrived at the last minute.