It was just then that Hunt’s hand dropped upon Boss Tolley’s shoulder. Nor did it drop lightly. The parson twisted the big man around by one muscular exertion and looked into his flushed face. “Don’t you think you’ve said enough to the young lady?” Hunt asked quietly. “You have evidently forgotten yourself.” “What—why, you fool tenderfoot!” “Suppose you go, Miss Blossom,” suggested Hunt with unruffled voice. “Let me speak to this man.” But the minister had quite mistaken Nell Blossom’s temper. She turned on him like a shot. “What are you butting in for, I’d like to know? I can take care of myself—always have and always expect to.” Then she laughed harshly, turning to Tolley again. “Better beat it, Tolley, or the parson will do something to you besides grabbing your hat.” The dance-hall keeper, swearing still, jerked away from Hunt’s grasp. He did not seek to continue the quarrel, however. He abruptly turned up the alley and disappeared. “For goodness’ sake, Ford!” ejaculated Miss Betty. Nell Blossom, thus attracted to the other girl, stepped nearer and stared at her. Her own face was unsmiling. If it had not been so really pretty one might have said it was a black look that she gave Betty. But it was an impish look, too. “There are some things you’d better learn if you are going to stay in this camp, parson,” said the singer. “The principal thing is to mind your own business. If I ever need your help in any little thing, I’ll call on you.” She passed them both, still staring—now with curiosity—at Betty and went on along the street. Betty seized her brother’s arm. “What a horrid little creature!” she said. CHAPTER XI—THE STORM ABOUT TO BURST There was a strangely paradoxical feeling in the Reverend Willett Ford Hunt’s mind. Nell Blossom was a subject of thought he could not escape. He could not wholly overlook her manners and speech; yet he did not feel that she was blameworthy for either. What chance had this wild blossom of a girl ever had, out in this wilderness, the daughter of a drunken ne’er-do-well, as he had been told, taught from her childhood to sing for her own living and for her father’s in the saloons of mining camps? Why, almost any other girl would have gone bad—as bad as could be. And he knew Nell Blossom was not bad. He really wished he might make Joe Hurley his confidant about the girl, but, harking back to that letter of Joe’s in which the latter had spoken so enthusiastically of Nell, the parson felt that his friend was too strongly prejudiced in Nell’s favor to risk his criticizing her in any way. One question recurred again and again to him: What did that man Tolley, who he knew was the proprietor of the Grub Stake saloon and dance hall, mean by commanding Nell to return to his employment?