"Of course he did, William," said Hart's aunt; "and I'm surprised you have to ask--seeing what an interest you take in the Society, and how you've helped it along. It was just lovely of you to give them all those goods out of your store to make up into clothes." "That--that wasn't anything to do," Hart said. "What's in the store comes with a big discount--same as melodeons. Sometimes I feel as if I was saving money giving things away." "You can talk about your generosity just as you please, William," she went on. "_I_ think it's noble of you. And Mr. Hill said that Mrs. Major Rogers--who keeps the Forest Queen Hotel, he said, and lets the Society have a room to meet in for nothing--said it was noble of you, too. I want to get to know Mrs. Major Rogers right off. She must be a very fine woman. She's an officer's widow, Mr. Hill says, and a real lady, for all she makes her living keeping a hotel out here on the frontier. If she's a bit like that sweet-looking Mrs. Charles I know we'll get along. I'm surprised, William, you've never told me what pleasant ladies live here. It must make all the difference in the world. Don't you think it would do for me not to be formal, but just to go to Mrs. Major Rogers' hotel to-morrow and call?" "I guess--well, I guess you hadn't better go right off the first thing in the morning, Aunt Maria," Hart said. Thinking of his aunt going calling at the Forest Queen and running up against Tenderfoot Sal, he said, gave him the regular cold shakes. "And come to think of it," he said, "it's no use your going to-morrow at all. Mrs.--Mrs. Major Rogers, as I happen to know, went up to Denver yesterday; and she won't be back, she told me, before some time on in the end of next week--likely as not, she said, she wouldn't come then." By that time they'd got along to Hart's store, and Hart said: "Here's where I live, Aunt Maria. You see what sort of a place it is. But I've done my best to fix things for you as well as I know how. Come right along in--and when we've had supper we've got to have a talk." * * * * * Along about ten o'clock that night Hart come down to the Forest Queen looking pale and haggard, and he was that broke up he had to get three drinks in him before he could say a word. Everybody was so interested, wanting to hear what he had to tell 'em, he didn't need to ask to have the game stopped--it just stopped of its own accord.