"Anybody hurt? What's the matter?" gasped Mark as he seized hold of the Reverend Mr. Goodloe's arm. "Nothing serious," answered the parson in a voice that calmed the others like oil on choppy water. "Jacob Ensley is out on a drunk and Billy had to knock him down to quiet him. All of you go back to dinner quickly, for I don't see why Sergeant Rogers should get Jacob this time. Billy will help me get him home and I'll remonstrate with him when he is sober. I'd rather do it at the Last Chance than at the jail. Jacob is a leading citizen and I don't want a jail smirch on him. I intend to use him later. Now all of you go. Go!" His voice was as gently positive as if he had been speaking to a lot of children and nobody seemed even to think of rebelling but we all began to fade away into the starlight as rapidly as we had assembled and more quietly. "Thank you, and bless you," he said to me, as I went past him in the darkness, and for just a second I suspected that his hand was laid on my black braids but I was not sure. I knew the gratitude was for my getting Martha off the scene of action so quietly and swiftly. "A bit of raw life for you, Charlotte," Nickols remarked as he went with me through the fragrant night back to Mark's and Nell's feast. "The eternal girl, two-men melee." "In this case it was girl--three men, the third skunking it," I answered in words as coarse and as forcible as the scene I had just witnessed. "I'd like to get my bare hands around the throat of the man who is hiding behind Martha and that little child." "That remark from you, my dear Charlotte, just goes to show that when women get even the smell of bloodshed they become fiercer than the male," said Nickols with a cool laugh that further infuriated me. "Yes, I do feel like a female jaguar," I answered hotly and then collapsed inside at the use of that name for myself in conjunction with my secret title for the Reverend Mr. Goodloe. "It would be better if you felt yourself in the character of a ferret if you intend to go out on a still hunt for all unacknowledged paternity, even in dear, simple, little old Goodloets," Nickols further jeered as we came up the steps of the Morgan house from where the others were just going into the dining room to resume their eating and drinking and being merry. "I'll find that one man," I answered as I swept into the dining room, seated myself in my place and drained my glass of flat wine. "Heaven help him!" laughed Nickols wickedly, and he raised Mr. Goodloe's full glass as he slipped into his place beside me.