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 matter of course. Tom would have been deeply affronted if they had taken it otherwise, and he would have been greatly surprised. It was only a little past noon when he arrived and, as he had left Coburn's inhospitable house without breakfast, the cordial invitation to dinner was doubly welcome.

Yet it was hardly an invitation, for Mrs. Ellison was calling him Tom as naturally and easily as if she had known him all his life. It was more like the pleasurable bustling around setting out things for one of the family who had arrived a little late. The two women sat at table with him, although they had finished their meal before he arrived, carrying out that comfortable feeling of family reunion after adventures afar upon the road.

They inquired of his reception at Coburn's, neither shocked nor surprised, apparently, to learn that it had been a little cold. Simpson made it a humorous recital, stressing far more the defiant strategy of the son and hope of the Coburn house in removing the bowl of preserves beyond the hungry stranger's reach than Coburn's surprise at finding him there. He passed over entirely the incident which had led up to the gun-pulling, only saying that Coburn was wrathful over the horse. He might be expected to appear with a demand for it, he was so hot over the shame the horse had brought on him in going to the wrong home.

In reply to Mrs. Ellison's inquiry on his future plans, Tom admitted they were not so fixed as to admit no revision, and at present they were laid out only as far as Wichita at the uttermost. He might pick up a job with some outfit down in the Nation if he went to Drumwell