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 redder for Annie's suppressed giggle, part of which would get out between her fingers. "Oh, shut up, or I'll slap you to sleep!" turning fiercely on her sister, who was undisturbed by her threat.

"They say it's all settled to make this a division point and build shops," Hall remarked, as indifferent to Mary's threat against her sister as the others, such outbursts between them being of daily occurrence. "That is, if they keep the county seat here. Otherwise it's going to Simrall, they say. But Simrall hasn't got much of a chance to win the election, according to the poll of voters, Judge Waters was telling me yesterday."

"They always say that about every railroad camp," Mary told him with high scorn. "Some people's ready to believe anything. I pity their ignorance!"

Hall was too well accustomed to the honest method of railroad expression by this time to be embarrassed by Mary's sniffing comment on his weakness. He helped himself to mashed potatoes without flush or tremor, only giving Annie a wink of understanding, as much as to say that, between them, it was appreciated as a joke. Mrs. Charles was cutting a slice of beef. She did not take her eyes from the operation to correct her outspoken daughter by as much as a frown.

"It's funny," Mrs. Charles commented, "how it gets out on a person if they've got a little money. I've got five thousand dollars—I guess everybody might as well know it now—in a savin's bank in Denver, but how Jim Justice ever got wind of it I don't know. Charley Burnett's found it out, too. Well, I don't mind about Charley; he's a—what do you think about that cattle company of his he's organized, Dr. Hall?"