"I'm awfully glad to see you again, Tom," she declared, buttering her bread. "It's just like old times, isn't it?" Could this smiling young girl be Kate Saltoun? Was this the Kate that had called him names and broken his heart and driven him from the Lazy River? Loudon furtively pinched himself. The pinch hurt. It was not all a dream then. Kate Saltoun, in the flesh, and separated from him by not more than four feet of scaly oilcloth, was actually smiling at him. Words failed Loudon. He could do nothing but gaze. Scotty, fearful of an introduction, oozed from the table. The drummer, unused to being ignored, fidgeted. He cleared his throat raucously. He would show this dumb person in chaps how a gentleman comports himself in the presence of a lady. It was the drummer's first trip West. "Beautiful day, Miss, beautiful," he smirked, tilting back in his chair, and rattling his watch-chains. "We should have a quick trip to Paradise Bend. Our driver, I understand, has procured another wheel, and----" The full-voiced utterance died abruptly. For Kate had looked imploringly at Loudon, and Loudon had swung about to face the drummer. For the first time in his life the drummer realized how cold, how utterly daunting, a pair of human eyes could be. "You through?" demanded Loudon. The drummer endured that disconcerting stare while a man might draw three breaths. Then his eyelids quivered, dropped, and a curious mottled pallor overspread his countenance. He glanced up, met again that disconcerting stare, and quickly looked elsewhere. "You through?" repeated Loudon. "I--I don't know as that's any of your business," said the drummer, faintly. "Git out," ordered Loudon. "Why, look here! By what right----" "Git out." Loudon had not raised his voice. The drummer glanced at Miss Saltoun. She was crumbling her bread and looking over his head with an air of intense boredom. So far as she was concerned, he had ceased to exist. And she had been so friendly and companionable on the long ride from Farewell. "You've done kept me waitin' some time," suggested Loudon, softly. Awkwardly, for he found his knees strangely weak, the drummer rose. With a lame attempt at jauntiness he pulled down his vest, shot his cuffs, and teetered from the room. He made his way to the bar and called for whisky. His nerves were rather upset. "Jake's put yore stuff in the stage," announced the landlord, who was also the bartender. "Then Jake can take my bags out again," said the drummer, disagreeably. "I'm staying over till to-morrow." "Well, hotel-keepers can't afford to be particular," the landlord said, unsmilingly. "But yuh'll have to unload yore truck yore own self." The drummer would have enjoyed cursing the landlord. But the latter had the same peculiar look about the eyes that Loudon had. The drummer went out into the street, thinking evil thoughts of these unamiable Westerners.