Both voices dropped, and through the unheard conversation which followed Jennifer, as she told Slicker afterwards, "simply grilled." She broke it at last by coming across with her cup.

"I really must interrupt you," she said. "Mrs. Barrymore wants to speak to you, Slicker, and you have monopolised Mrs. Chichester quite long enough. Mrs. Barrymore is a member of the Woman's Auxiliary, Slicker. You have helped unpack some of the bales of clothing which they send out to the Anglican Missions, I know. I have heard you speak of it at Grey Wolf."

Slicker's blue eyes met hers full. They looked startlingly blue in the deep bronze of his face, and they looked wickedly amused. He had read her ruse, and he was not going to let her benefit by it. He rose promptly.

"I shall be delighted to give Mrs. Barrymore any information she may require about the best kinds of things to send up there," he said.

"Slicker," began Jennifer despairingly, and then Mrs. Barrymore smiled across the room.

"You are a convert to mission work, then?" she asked.

"Well, not exactly a convert." Slicker remembered Miss Chubb's oft-repeated assertions that he would be the death of her and that the circumstance was fierce. "I do what little I can;" his voice was modest. "Sometimes I help the deaconess sell things to the breeds and Indians. A corporal in the M. P. and I are trying to marry off some of the girls around Grey Wolf if only we could get something stylish on them to take the eye——"

Jennifer's mother created a diversion for a few moments. But Slicker returned to the attack. He was enjoying himself better than he had expected, and the pretty girl was evidently interested.

"You need to send up some real smart dashing clothes, Mrs. Barrymore," he said. "I know what a breed girl wants to make her look human. I've tried most of the bale-room things on them——"

"Oh!" Mrs. Chichester shot the word out like a bomb, and Slicker's calm voice continued: "—on top of their other clothes. They're not nice about a thing fitting too quick. And if you pinch them in one place they—