to Westcott.  The Privileged Infant, having taken possession of Jim’s shanty, made a feint of living in it, having moved his trunk, his bed, his whisky, and all other necessaries to the shanty.  As his thirty days had expired, he was getting ready to pre-empt; the value of the claim would put him in funds, and he proposed, now that his blood was up, to give up his situation, if he should find it necessary, and “play out his purty little game” with Albert Charlton.  It was shrewdly suspected, indeed, that if he should leave the Territory, he would not return.  He knew nothing of the pistol which the Gardeen Angel kept under his wing for him, but Whisky Jim had threatened that he shouldn’t enjoy his claim long.  Jim had remarked to several people, in his lofty way, that Minnesoty wuz a healthy place fer folks weth consumption, but a dreffle sickly one fer folks what jumped other folks’s claims when they wuz down of typus.  And Jim grew more and more threatening as the time of Westcott’s pre-emption drew near.  While throwing the mail-bag off one day at the Metropolisville post-office he told Albert that he jest wished he knowed which mail Westcott’s land-warrant would come in.  He wouldn’t steal it, but plague ef he wouldn’t heave it off into the Big Gun River, accidentally a purpose, ef he had to go to penitensh’ry fer it.

But after all his weary and impatient waiting on and badgering of Plausaby, Albert got his land-warrant, and hurried off to the land-office, made his pre-emption, gave Mr. Minorkey a mortgage with a waiver in it, borrowed two hundred dollars at three per cent a month and five after maturity, interest to be settled every six months.

Then, though it was Friday evening, he would have packed everything and hurried away the next morning; but his mother interposed her authority.  Katy couldn’t be got ready.  What was the use of going to Red Owl to stay over Sunday?  There was no boat down Sunday, and they could just as well wait till Monday, and take the Tuesday boat, and so Albeit reluctantly consented to wait.

But he would not let Katy be out of his sight.  He was determined that in these last hours of her stay in the Territory, Smith Westcott should not have a moment’s opportunity for conversation with her.  He played the tyrannical brother to perfection.  He walked about the house in a fighting mood all the time, with brows drawn down and fist ready to clench.

He must have one more boat-ride with Helen Minorkey, and he took Katy with him, because he dared not leave her behind.  He took them both in the unpainted pine row-boat which belonged to nobody in particular, and he rowed away across the little lake, looking at the grassy-green shores on the one side, and at the basswood trees that shadowed the other.  Albert had never had a happier hour.  Out in the lake he was safe from the incursions of the tempter.  Rowing on the water, he relaxed the strain of his vigilance; out on the lake, with water on every side,