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"Ain't been anything for ie shook her head He waited a er, and then sidled out, and when he was heard crunching over the cinders with his barrow-load of boxes, she switched off the current abruptly, and went over to the atch hione, her eyes staring vacantly down the scintillating rails to where they see point far away in the desert "Item--" But whatever the item was, she jotted it down silently in that mental me in that little blue book of mine," she used to tell her father, "it's there for keeps And there's the advantage that I never leave it lying around to be lost, or for other people to pick up and read toIt's better than cipher--for I don't talk in my sleep"

The four-thirty-five train ca placer er, nor Peaceful Hart, nor any word of either Miss Georgie spent a good deal of ti out of the ard the store that day, and when she was not doing that she was s up without knohy she did so, and laying theain when she discovered them in her hands and had no use for theazines; and she left the whole pile just inside the door without undoing a wrapping

At five o'clock she rose abruptly from the rocker, in which she had just deposited herself with irritated emphasis, and wired her chief for leave of absence until seven

"It's important, Mr Gray Business which can't wait," she clicked urgently "I'll be back before Eight is due Please" Miss Georgie did not often send that last word of her own volition All up and down the line she was said to be "Independent as a hog on ice"--a simile not pretty, perhaps, nor even exact, but frequently applied, nevertheless, to self-reliant souls like the Hartley operator

Be that as it racious permission to lock the office door fro so, and heaved a great sigh of relief when it was done She went straight to the store, and straight back to where Pete Ha over a barrel redolent of pickled pork He ca hands and a treasure-trove of flabbyit over the barrel until the superfluous brine dripped away, she asked him for a horse