"Try me," urged Molly, smiling. "I'll let you shoot her off anyway," he said magnanimously. "But you gotter help clean her. If you don't clean her, she gets rusty and won't shoot straight. Here's the catridges." "What little bits of things! Will they kill anything?" "Hoh!" replied the Kid with contempt. "Is that your dog?" hastily inquired Molly, conscious of her error. Peter was busily engaged in acquiring an olfactory knowledge of the four wheels and two axles of the wagon. "Him? Naw. He's the bigges' fool dog I ever see. He goes along unless you tie him up. And he keeps rummagin' around, and he scares all the game there is. _I_ can't _make_ him stay home." A cabin door opened quickly, and a miner issued forth. "There goes Dan Barker," said the Kid. In twenty minutes Molly knew the history of everyone of any importance in town. She found the child's primitive instinct of hero worship an unerring touchstone by which to judge of each individual's influence in this little community. He reflected the camp's opinion, and this was exactly what she wanted to learn. She encouraged the boy to talk--not a difficult matter, for his attentions had hitherto been quite ignored, saving by Frosty and Peter. Frosty had proved valuable always in the matter of skinning game or extracting refractory shells, but he had never, even in his youngest days, been a boy. Between Peter and the Kid was waged a perpetual war on the subject of hunting methods. The Kid believed in stalking. Peter held the opinion that the chase was the only noble form of the sport. The child had been lonely, strange. Now he chatted to Molly with all the self-reliant confidence which pertains of right to healthy boyhood, but which heretofore he had been denied. He boasted with accustomed air. He spoke lightly of great deeds. Molly did not laugh at him. His heart warmed to her, and he fell in love with her on the spot. This was perhaps the most important conquest the girl was destined to make, for there is no devotion in the world like that of a boy of thirteen for a girl older than himself. [Illustration: "WATCH ME HIT THAT SQUIRREL!"] In a little time, Molly had gathered a number of men about her, and was holding them by sheer force of charm. "How are you?" she called pleasantly to the first. "Purty smart," grinned the man, slouching past awkwardly. "How's yourself?" "Good. Come on over and see me and the Kid for awhile." She talked to him lightly, while he lumbered along after with his slow wits. Other men came out, to all of whom she called a greeting, and some of whom she summoned to her. She held them easily. It became an audience, a court. They had a good time. There was much laughter. No one grudged the delay. Each man held his axe shouldered, expecting to go on to work in a moment or so, but still lingering--because she willed that he should.