that," he said, in his cat-like nasal snarl, "and I'll kill yeh."

"Hand over yon purse, then," said the old farmer; his calm iron grip holding the clerk to the counter without visible effort, in spite of the latter's wildest squirming. Markey felt the power of that arm and shoulder, nurtured healthily by the long, clean-living, open days of Plow-Land. It was as though he were pinned down by an oak beam. If Old Man Hogle chose to use the rawhide—

"Let me up, then!" he flamed, sweating with his struggles, "an' I'll give the jane her purse."

"You give it up now," directed Old Man Hogle "or, as sure as 'm standin' here, I'll tan ye with this rawhide till ye can't see.... An' ye can let up on the talk, too, whenever ye like," this in reference to the language which mingled with Markey's contortions, "or maybe ye'll get a crack or two anyway. Ain't ye ashamed, with the girl standin' here—or have ye no shame to ye? Dry up, now!"

This last adjuration, accompanied by a shake which all but dislocated Markey's neck, decided that young man. His hand went to his breast-pocket. Into the middle of the floor the purse, flung down viciously, fell with a slap.

"Is that the right purse, Missie?" the old man said, shifting his grip a little as he glanced down at it.

Daisy nodded gratefully; a twinkle and a dimple in that side of her face which was turned toward Markey. The oaken hand came off the clerk's collar. He sprang up dishevelled, caught a heavy clerical ruler, black and round and thick, off the counter, and poised it as though aiming for a throw.

Daisy eyed this pantomime a little nervously; but Jim Hogle turned his back carelessly on Markey and missile.

"He'll not sling it," he said, "he knows better. He done that once before, an' we had a—a little argyment. They talk," the old man ran his palm up and down the rawhide and lapsed a moment into reflectiveness, "about dee-mocracy, an' every man bein' his own boss. Dee-mocracy's all right for a man when he's grew up; but some men never outgrows the tawse. If they'd judge a man less by how old he is than by the sense he's got, this world would be ran better.... Well, little gal, your eyes looks land of heavy. Couldn't 'a had much sleep, coming in on that midnight local, without no sleepin' berths in it. Let's see, now."

He turned to the register and ran his finger down the page; then looked around.

"You skin up to Room No. 19, the one that Beatty lad hired for 'Mr. and Mrs. F. S. Beatty'. I'll 'see that ye ain't disturbed, while ye get y'r sleep out; then we can talk over what ye're a-goin to do. Now, Bob Markey," the old man glanced at the clock, "I'm goin' to get to hell out 'o this, like you said, an' meet that south train. And I'll be in plenty o' time, too."

With this, old Jim Hogle, taking his rawhide with him, passed off across the rotunda—the picture of health, from his great shoulders to the cat-like feet that moved as though yet in their pioneer moccasins—and made the ceiling ring with the mighty bass of his "last ca-a-all"—this being on the present morning a purely perfunctory office, as the rotunda of the Imperial Hotel was empty. Daisy—glad enough to do it, too, for her limbs were tottering under her with drowsiness—took the key Markey sullenly flung down on the counter, and went up to bed in Room No. 19.

CHAPTER IV. A "Steer".

It might have been about four o'clock in the afternoon when she awoke. Room No. 19 looked westward—not over green swells of grass and grazing cattle, and a wind swinging as a censer in the sky-temple, but over a hot gravelled roof, parapetted with brick and crossed by three radial clotheslines, upon which human garments jiggled grotesquely, like scissored paper men. The only jig-makers extant, these, on that busy midweek afternoon.

At one end of this low one-story level of roof, a brick rear-wall rose, with a row of doors that opened out upon those merry clothes-lines. Through one of these doors, as Daisy looked, came a young girl of about her own age. Plainly soon to become a mother, the girl's eyes had that mild, pondering look characteristic of her condition. She dragged over the gravel a basket of clothes; and, when she had reached an unoccupied part of one of the clotheslines, commenced to pin the washed things up—a mechanic's moleskin shirt, a cheap, print house-dress, a limp, lacy blouse, a little frilled dust-cap, and other little sartorial coquetries that told their tale of a marriage less than a year old.

Daisy was taking her first look at "light housekeeping"; and, as she was new from the country, with all her distaste of fields and cows and "chores" uppermost, this back-roof prospect held her, as the new always holds. To her, it was not sordid, but sunny and cosy, with the wonderful city-sounds rising all about. She could almost have leaped across to the brick parapet, which was just below the level of her window; and for one gay adventurous moment, she came nearly doing it. She wanted to look in those doors; to see how people lived, in the city; to talk to the young urban housewife. She wanted to explore endlessly, to feed her boundless and exuberant youth's appetite of the eye.

A knock came at the door. Daisy felt a little anxious as she thought of old Jim Hogle. He had served her turn—secured her purse for her from Markey, toward whom she bore no grudge but felt instead a mischievous desire to "tame down" into a wooer—and she did not want any meddling, old, self-appointed foster-father handicapping her movements here in town. She must let the old man, who reminded her distastefully of the farm, know, once and for all, that her plans were "none of his business". Perhaps, though, he would not be put aside so easily. With this last thought in her mind, it was a very cold and hostile face that Daisy presented, as she unlocked the door and opened it.

"Oh-h! Woo-oo!" exclaimed a voice, with a burlesque of shivering. The sylph of the blond coiffure skipped in, shrinking away playfully as she closed the door. "I say—you do chill one, you know!"

Daisy relaxed her face.

"I thought it was that old What's-his-name," she said.

"Ar, yes", the sylph had bobbed over, and was poking at her hair with a forefinger, canting and turning her head before the looking glass—trying, doubtless, to reduce her order to some semblance of Daisy's pretty disorder; "ar, yes—'e is a bit of an old nuisance, 'e is. You carn't guess what 'e's up to now".

"What?" Daisy's eyes widened.

"Arskin' the boss to take you on 'ere, as a dinin'-room girl. The boss, 'e'll do it, too. 'Im and Jim-jam's old pals—'old-timers' they calls it, among the colownials—and the 'Ogle person 'e can have any think 'e wants for the arskin'. D'you know, I shouldn't take it, if I were you".

"I'm not going to take it," said Daisy, with considerable fervor.

The sylph, pulling herself away at length from the glass, came over and sat down on the side of the bed—dangling her high heels kittenishly and eyeing Daisy up and down.

"Do you know what I should do, if I were in your boots?" she said.

Daisy's eyes came up interrogatively.

"I should go into service," pursued the sylph; "like as not, you'll 'ave a charnce at some rich young man, that way, sooner or later. 'Ousemaids have done that, by good management, even owver in the Old Country. Out 'ere, it's a—a caution, 'ow often it happens".

"I don't want to marry anybody, rich or poor, just now", said Daisy; "but how do you get into 'service', and what is it?