Maybe you'd tell a judge that you knowed all these gents behind their masks, but they wouldn't be no way you could prove it!" A stir behind him was ample assurance that this simple point had escaped the cowpunchers.

Why do you make any question of it?what a stir is hereI warrant youpresently!

But to have to talk, with the noise of the music, and the stir, of the dancing, and the whirl that is always going on in such a room, is penance.

As he spoke she sometimes lost his meaning and the stir of his lips became a nameless gibbering.

That first guest stirring would be Mr. Gratton on hand to pounce on Gloria and get her out of the house for a run down to the lake, a dash in a canoe, or a brief stroll across the meadow before the breakfast-gong.

Yet they could have wept for thanks as readily as for chagrin or fatigue, so kindly were they taken in, so stirring was the next word of news.

That first guest stirring would be Mr. Gratton on hand to pounce on Gloria and get her out of the house for a run down to the lake, a dash in a canoe, or a brief stroll across the meadow before the breakfast-gong.

Grave-diggers were at work on a near hillside; she could hear the clink clink of spade and pick; reveille was sounding from hill to hill; the muffled stirring became a dull, sustained clatter, never ceasing around her for one instant.

A stirring in the bushes was the only answer.