And--and--well, there's no better friend of Sol Berry's on earth than I am, but, so fur as their quarrel was concerned, if you ask me I'd have to say Olive was pretty nigh right." "Maybe--maybe," declared the allwise Cornelius, "but just the same if I was Sol Berry, and knew my old girl was likely to go to the poorhouse, I'll bet my conscience--" "S-ssh!" hissed Crocker, frantically.

Cornelius stopped in the middle of his sentence, whirled in his chair, and looked up.

Behind him in the doorway of the station stood Captain Sol himself.

The blue cap he always wore was set back on his head, a cigar tipped upward from the corner of his mouth, and there was a grim look in his eye and about the smooth shaven lips above the short, grayish-brown beard.
"Issy" sprang from his settee and jammed the paper novel into his pocket.

Ed Crocker's sunburned face turned redder yet.