gazed upon his questioner as if the latter were a new and interesting specimen of insect life.

"No," he said, "I don't think I'm losing my nerve. Do you think I'm losing my nerve, Rafe?"

Rafe looked upon Tip. Tip looked upon Rafe. The others held their respective breaths. In the room was dead silence.

"Do you, Rafe?" persisted Tip, his voice velvety smooth.

Rafe found his tongue. "No, I don't," he declared frankly. "But, I don't see why you don't like my scheme."

"Don't you? I'll explain. Tom Walton's niece, Hazel, is the drawback. Rubbin' out Tom would most likely put a crimp in her, sort of. She lost her ma and pa only five years ago."

"Aw, the devil!" exclaimed Rafe Tuckleton. "We can't stop to think of all those li'l things. We're here to make money, no matter how. Good Gawd, Tip! We ain't——"

"Good Gawd, Rafe!" interrupted Tip. "We ain't hiring any gunman to wipe out Tom Walton. I'm no he-angel—none of us are, I guess; but I've known Hazel since she was a li'l squaller, and I won't sit still and see her hurt. And that goes!"

Tip nodded with finality at Rafe Tuckleton. Rafe sat back on the middle of his spine and gnawed his lower lip. His eyes were sulky.

"I don't want to see Hazel hurt either," said Skinny Shindle with an indescribable leer, "but when it comes to a question of li'l Hazel or us, I'm for us every time."

"You look here, Skinny," said Tip O'Gorman in a low dispassionate voice, "what I said to Rafe, I say to you: Hands off Tom Walton."

"Oh, all right," said Skinny Shindle, "but if anything happens out of this, don't say I didn't tell you."

"I won't say so, Skinny," Tip said good-naturedly. "I won't say a word."

"Gentlemen," Felix Craft put in hurriedly, "let's go slow about now. No use saying anything hasty, not a bit of use. Tip's right. None of us want to hurt Hazel, and——"

"And we want to be damn sure we don't want to hurt Hazel," interrupted Tip O'Gorman, his eyes fixed on Rafe Tuckleton's sullen face.

"'T'sall right, 't'sall right," said Rafe, forcing a smile. "Have it your own way, Tip. Tom Walton's safe for all of me."

"Good enough," Tip said heartily, shooting at Rafe a glance that was not completely trustful.

Entered then Jack Murray, wearing a set smile across his scratched face. He nodded to the assemblage, sat down jauntily on the edge of the table and brought out the makings.

"Well!" he said, his eyes on Rafe Tuckleton, rolling the while a meticulous cigarette. "Well, I suppose you've got the ticket all made up."

"Just about," nodded Rafe.

"What prize did I draw?"

"A large, round goose-egg," Skinny Shindle answered for Rafe with malice.

"Huh!" Thus Mr. Murray, the hand he had reached upward to his hatband coming down without the match. "You serious, Skinny?"

"I wish I thought I wasn't," was the reply.

Jack Murray turned a slow head back toward Rafe Tuckleton. "You told me the sheriff's job was mine," he said bluntly.

"I thought it was," admitted Rafe, looking straight into his eyes. "But we've heard some bad news, unexpected news. It seems you ain't as popular with our citizens as you might be. We understand that you're so little liked you wouldn't be elected in a million years."

"Who told you that?" Jack's tone was sharp.

"I did." Thus Tip O'Gorman in a tone no less sharp. "And I know what I'm talking about, you can gamble on that."

"Tip's had his ear to the ground pretty steady," said Rafe Tuckleton. "He knows what's on every voter's mind, and if we nominate you for sheriff it means the defeat of the party. Listen, and I'll explain the whole thing."

Jack Murray listened in silence. When Rafe said his last word, Jack Murray laid his unlighted cigarette across the end of his left index finger and teetered it slowly.

"Who you figurin' on running in my place," he drawled, his dark gaze on the cigarette.

"Bill Wingo."

The teetering stopped. The cigarette slipped into the fork of two fingers. The man slid to his feet.

"Bill Wingo," he repeated. "Bill Wingo, huh? Well, this is a surprise."

Without another word he left the room, closing the door behind him very gently.

When he had gone Tip O'Gorman threw a whimsical glance at Rafe Tuckleton.

"I'd feel better if he'd slammed that door," said Tip O'Gorman.

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT SALLY JANE THOUGHT

"Careless child," observed Bill Wingo, coming up on the porch where Sally Jane lay in the hammock. "You dropped your hat in the draw. I found it this morning. Here it is. Don't move, sweet one. Of course, if you asked me to sit down or didn't ask me I would, and if you felt like rustling some coffee and cake, or lemonade and doughnuts, or even just a piece of pie with a bite of cheese on the side—just a bite, not over half a pound, I don't like cheese much—I wouldn't stop you."

"Stop calling me 'sweet one,'" Miss Prescott said crossly. "I'm not your sweet one, or anybody else's sweet one, and I'll get you something to fill your fat stomach, you lazy loafer, when I get good and ready. Not before."

"Well, all right," he murmured resignedly, settling down on the stout pine rail of the porch and fanning himself with his hat. "But I love you just the same. What's that? Did I hear you curse or something?"

"Something. I only said damn because you make me sick. Love, love, love, morning, noon and night! Don't men ever think of anything else?"

"Not when you're around," he told her.

"Oh, it's the very devil," admitted Sally Jane, rubbing her red mouth with a reflective forefinger. "Am I so alluring?"

"Who has been kissing you now?" he asked idly and wondered why her face should flame at the word. Wondered—because everybody knew Sally Jane.

On her part she wondered if he had seen what had passed in the draw the day before, then decided instantly that he had not, else his manner toward her would have been decidedly different.

"You haven't answered my question?" he persisted, still idly.

"Does it need one?"

"Well, no, not yet, anyway. When you're engaged to me, I'll know who's kissing you."

"Don't be disgusting."

"No disgusting about it. I'll probably hug you, too."

"What dismal beasts men are," she said, with a mock shiver, having regained control of her jumpy nerves. "I suppose you'd enjoy having me sit on your knee."

"I would indeed," he told her warmly. "I think that chair there would hold the two of us if we sat quiet—fairly quiet."

It was at this juncture that her father, Sam Prescott, came out on the porch.

"Howdy, young Bill," said Sam. He invariably prefixed the adjective to Bill's name. Why, no one knew. It was doubtful if he knew himself.

"'Lo, Sam," said young Bill.

"Sam," said Sally Jane from the hammock, "s'pose now a man tried to hug you, and kiss you and make you sit on his knee, what would you do?"

"If I was you, you mean?" inquired Sam judicially. Middle-aged though he was, he never ceased to experience a pleasurable thrill when his daughter called him "Sam." It reminded him so much of her mother. "If I was you," he went on, without waiting for an answer, "and the feller which tried to make me do all those things was young Bill here, I'd do 'em. I really believe he likes you, Sally Jane."

"You think so, do you?" sighed Sally Jane, smoothing her frock down over her ankles. "You too, Samuel? What chance has a poor girl got—without a club?"

"I told her if she married me," spoke up Bill, "she could have jam on Sundays and butter the rest of the week."

"There, you see, Sally Jane!" said Sam Prescott. "He'll be good and generous. And if you asked him for a new dress now and then, or a pair of shoes, I'll bet he wouldn't say no."

Sally Jane stubbornly shook her copper-colored head of hair. "Samuel," said she, "you're the