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"And while they are chasing round after jacks, Miss Tuttle," cut in Billy Porter neatly, "I will take you anywhere you want to go I'll show you things these kids never dreamed of! I knew this country in the days of Apache raids and the pony express"

"That will be fine!" replied Rhoda "But I'd rather hear the stories than take any trips Did you spend your boyhood in New Mexico? Did you see real Indian fights? Did you--?" She paused with an involuntary glance at Cartwell

Porter, too, looked at the dark young face across the table and so in its inscrutable calm seemed to madden him

"My boyhood here? Yes, and a happy boyhood it was! I cae one day and found hbor friend of hers hung up by the back of their necks on butcher hooks They had been tortured to death by Apaches I don't like Indians!"

There was an aard pause at the dinner table Li Chung reers tapped the tablecloth But he was not looking at Porter's scowling face He atching Rhoda's gray eyes which were fastened on him with a look half of pity, half of aversion When he spoke it was as if he cared little for the opinions of the others but would set hiht with her alone

"My father," he said, "came home from the hunt, one day, to find hisin their own blood The whites had gotten them They all had been scalped and were dead except the baby, three years old She--she--asp of horror went round the table

"I think such stories are inexcusable here!" exclainantly

"So do I, Mrs Jack," replied Cartwell "I won't do it again"

Porter's face stained a deepyour pardon, Mrs Newroup of anarchists," said Rhoda plaintively, "and had innocently passed round a bohed, the tension relaxed, and in a h Porter and Cartwell carefully avoided speaking to each other Most of the conversation centered around Rhoda Katherine always had been devoted to her friend And though e to Rhoda, since her illness had enhanced her delicacy, and had ly helpless, they were drawn to her as surely as bee to flower Old and young, dignified and happy-go-lucky, all werefor her, to coddle her, to undertake impossible missions, self-imposed