She looked at him through tear-dimmed eyes, the sobs slowly drying to a spasmodic catching in the rounded throat. She shook her head and the tears welled up again in answer to his sympathy. He walked softly to the table and placed a hand on her bowed head. "Li’l Miss will tell Sammy all about it when she dries her eyes an’ gets comfy. Sammy will make things all right again an’ laugh with her. Don’t you mind him a mite—jus’ cry hard, an’ when all th’ tears are used up, then you tell Sammy what it’s all about." She shook her head and would not look up. He bent down carefully and examined the bruised wrist—and his eyes glinted with rage; but he did not speak. The minutes passed in silence, the girl ashamed to show her reddened and tear-stained face; the boy stubbornly determined to stay and learn the facts. He heard his friends tramp past, wondering where he was, but he did not move. Finally she brushed back her hair and looked up at him and the misery in her eyes made him catch his breath. "Won’t you go?" she pleaded. He shook his head. "Please!" "Not till I finds out whose fingers made them marks," he replied. The look of fear flashed up again, but he checked it with a smile he far from felt. "Nobody ’s goin’ to make you cry, an’ get away with it," he told her. "Who was it?" "I won’t tell you. I can’t tell you! I don’t know!" "Li’l Miss, look me in th’ eyes an’ say it again. I thought so. You mustn’t say things that ain’t true. Who did that?" "What do you want to know for?" "Oh, jus’ because." "What will you do?" "Oh, I ’ll sorta talk to him. All I want to know is his name." "I won’t tell you; you ’ll fight with him." He turned his sombrero over and looked gravely into its crown. "Well," he admitted, "he _might_ not like me talkin’ ’bout it. Of course, you can’t never tell." "But he did n’t mean to hurt me. He ’s only rough and boisterous; and he wasn’t himself," she pleaded, looking down. "Uh-huh," grunted Sammy, cogitating. "So ’m I. _I ’m_ awful rough an’ boisterous, _I_ am; only I don’t hurt wimmin. What’s his name?" "I’ll not tell you!" "Well, all right; but if he ever comes in here again an’ gets rough an’ boisterous he ’ll lose a hull lot of future. I ’ll naturally blow most of his head off, which is frequent fatal. What’s that? Oh, he’s a bad man, is he? Uh-huh; so ’m I. Well, I ’m goin’ to run along now an’ see th’ boss. If you won’t tell, you won’t. I ’ll be back soon," and he sauntered to the street and headed for Pete’s saloon, where the agent had said Mr. Clarke was wont to pass his fretful hours. As he turned the corner he bumped into Hopalong and Johnny, who grabbed at him, and missed. He backed off and rested on his toes, gingery and alert. "Keep yore dusty han’s off’n me," he said, quietly. "I ’m goin’ down to palaver with a gent what I don’t like." Hopalong’s shrewd glance looked him over. "What did this gent do?" he asked, and he would not be evaded.