"I don't mind one bit. I don't want to be in the way. I'll telephone from home.... Good-night, dearest!" On tiptoes she drew his face down to hers and kissed him. "I'm so happy..." Half dazed, Nat stared after her until her lightly moving figure merged with the shadows beneath the trees and was lost. Then, with a sigh, he turned back to Pete. The sheriff had undoubtedly suffered at the hands of that militant person, Mrs. Willing. "Great Scott!" Duncan exclaimed as he examined the two-inch gash in his head. "That's a bird, Pete." "M' wife done it," Willing muttered huskily. "Sh' threw side 'r th' house at me, I think." "Wife, eh?" The coincidence smote Duncan with redoubled force. He shivered "Well, she certainly gave it to you good." He went behind the counter to prepare a dressing for the wound, which, if wide, was neither deep nor serious and gave him little concern for Pete. The latter ruminated on the event, breathing stertorously, while Duncan was fixing up a wash of peroxide. "She'll kill me some day," he announced suddenly, with intense conviction in his tone. "Oh, don't say that...." Opposition roused Pete to a fury of assertion. "Yes, she will, sure!" he bawled. Then his emotion quieted. "But I'd 'bout as soon be dead's live with her, anyway." "_Um_." Nat got some absorbent cotton and adhesive plaster. "Been drinking again, hadn't you?" "Yesh," Pete admitted with a leer of drunken cunning. "But she druv me to it." He was quiet for a moment. "Mish'r Duncan," he volunteered cheerfully, "you ain't got _no_ idee how lucky y'are y'aint married." "Is that so?" Nat returned with the dressings. "No idee'tall." Pete surrendered his head to Nat's ministrations. "'Nd I hope y' won't never have." "But I'm going to be married, Pete." The sheriff assimilated this information and became abruptly intractable. He jerked his head away and swung round in his chair to argue the matter. "Oh, no!" he expostulated. "Don't, Mish'r Duncan. Don't never do it. Take warnin' from me." "But I'm engaged, Pete." "Maksh no diff'runsh--break it off." His voice rose to a howl of alarm. "F'r Gaw's sake, break it off!--now, before it's too late! Do anythin' rather'n that: drink--lie--steal--murder--c'mit suicide--don't care what--only _keep single!_" "Here," said Duncan, laughing, "sit back there and let me'tend to your head." He began to wash the wound with the peroxide. "There: that'll sting a bit, but not long.... But suppose, Pete, I'd get a lot of money by marrying?" "No matter how mush y'get, 'tain't enough!" "I'm inclined to think you're about right, Pete." "You bet I'm right. I'm married 'nd _I know_." Nat finished dressing the cut, smoothed down the ends of the adhesive tape, and stood back. "That's all right, now. Go home, wash your face, and sleep it off. Let me see you sober in the morning." "Huh!" Pete chuckled derisively. "Ain't goin' home t'night." "You've got to get some sleep: that's the only way for you to straighten up."