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"'Mawnin', Ellen!" he drawled "Y'u shore look good for sore eyes"

"Don't pay me compliments, Colter," replied Ellen "An' your eyes are not sore"

"Wal, I'htin' an' ridin' an' layin' out," he said, bluntly

"Tell me--what's happened," returned Ellen

"Girl, it's a tolerable long story," replied Colter "An' we've no tiin's or leave them heah?" asked Ellen

"Reckon y'u'd better leave--them heah"

"But if we did not come back--"

"Wal, I reckon it's not likely we'll coo off into the woods with just the clothes I have on rab we can This shore ain't goin' to be a visit to neighbors We're shy pack hosses But y'u s y'u'll need bad We'll throw it on somewhere"

Colter stalked away across the lane, and Ellen found herself dubiously staring at his tall figure Was it the situation that struck her with a foreboding perplexity or was her intuition steeling her against this o with him Her prejudice was unreasonable at this portentous moment And she could not yet feel that she was solely responsible to herself

When it cas she was in a quandary She discarded this and put in that, and then reversed the order Next in preciousness to her ifts of Jean Isbel She could part with neither

While she was selecting and packing this bundle Colter again entered and, without speaking, began to rue in the corner where her father kept his possessions This irritated Ellen

"What do y'u want there?" she deold he left heah--an' a change of clothes Now doesn't he?" returned Colter, coolly

"Of course But I supposed y'u would have me pack them"

Colter vouchsafed no reply to this, but deliberately went on rus Ellen turned her back on hith, when he left, she went to her father's corner and found that, as far as she was able to see, Colter had taken neither papers nor clothes, but only the gold Perhaps, however, she had been mistaken, for she had not observed Colter's departure closely enough to knohether or not he carried a package She old Her father's papers, old and athered up to slip in her own bundle