Jason Hawn rode rapidly to one of Morton Sanders' great stables, put
his horse away himself, and, avoiding the chance of meeting John
Burnham, slipped down the slope to the creek, crossed on a water gap,
and struck across the sunset fields for home. He had felt no anger at
Marjorie's mysterious outbreak--only bewilderment; and only
bewilderment he felt now.
But as he strode along with his eyes on the ground, things began to
clear a little. The fact was that, as he had become more enthralled by
the girl's witcheries, the more helpless and stupid he had become.
Marjorie's nimble wit had played about his that afternoon like a
humming-bird around a sullen sunflower. He hardly knew that every word,
every glance, every gesture was a challenge, and when she began
stinging into him sharp little arrows of taunt and sarcasm he was
helpless as the bull's-hide target at which the two sometimes practised
archery. Even now when the poisoned points began to fester, he could
stir himself to no anger--he only felt dazed and hurt and sore. Nobody
was in sight when he reached his mother's home and he sat down on the
porch in the twilight wretched and miserable. Around the corner of the
house presently he heard his mother and Steve coming, and around there
they stopped for some reason for a moment.
"I seed Babe Honeycutt yestiddy," Steve was saying. "He says thar's a
lot o' talk goin' on about Mavis an' Gray Pendleton. The Honeycutts air
doin' most o' the talkin' an' looks like the ole trouble's comin' up
again. Old Jason is tearin' mad an' swears Gray'll have to git out o'
them mountains--"
Jason heard them start moving and he rose and went quickly within that
they might know he had overheard. After supper he was again on the
porch brooding about Mavis and Gray when his mother came out. He knew
that she wanted to say something, and he waited.
"Jason," she said finally, "you don't believe Colonel Pendleton cheated
Steve--do you?"
"No," said the lad sharply. "Colonel Pendleton never cheated anybody in
his life--except himself."
"That's all I wanted to know," she sighed, but Jason knew that was not
all she wanted to say.
"Jason, I heerd two fellers in the lane to-day' talkin' about tearin'
up Colonel Pendleton's tobacco beds."
The boy was startled, but he did not show it.
"Nothin' but talk, I reckon."
"Well, if I was in his place I'd git some guards."
Marjorie sat at her window a long time that night before she went to
sleep. Her mother had come in, had held her tightly to her breast, and
had gone out with only a whispered good-night. And while the girl was
wondering once more at the strange effect of her naive question, she
recalled suddenly the yearning look of her uncle that afternoon when
she had mentioned Gray's name. Could there be some thwarted hope in the
lives of Gray's father and her mother that both were now trying to
realize in the lives of her and Gray? Her mother had never spoken her
wish, nor doubtless Gray's father to him--nor was it necessary, for as
children they had decided the question themselves, as had Mavis and
Jason Hawn, and had talked about it with the same frankness, though
with each pair alike the matter had not been mentioned for a long time.
Then her mind leaped, and after it leaped her heart--if her Uncle
Robert would not let her mother help him, why, she too could never help
Gray, unless--why, of course, if Gray were in trouble she would marry
him and give him everything she had. The thought made her glow, and she
began to wish Gray would come home. He had been a long time in those
hills, his father was sick and worried--and what was he doing down
there anyhow? He had mentioned Mavis often in his first letters, and
now he wrote rarely, and he never spoke of her at all. She began to get
resentful and indignant, not only at him but at Mavis, and she went to
bed wishing more than ever that Gray would come home. And yet playing
around in her brain was her last vision of that mountain boy standing
before her, white and silent--"like a gentleman"--and that vision would
not pass even in her dreams.
Through Colonel Pendleton's bed-room window an hour later two pistol
shots rang sharply, and through that window the colonel saw a man leap
the fence around his tobacco beds and streak for the woods. From the
shadow of a tree at his yard fence another flame burst, and by its
light he saw a crouching figure. He called out sharply, the figure rose
and came toward him, and in the moonlight the colonel saw uplifted to
him, apologetic and half shamed, the face of Jason Hawn.
"No harm, colonel," he called. "Somebody was tearing up your tobacco
beds and I just scared him off. I didn't try to hit him."
The colonel was dazed, but he spoke at last gently.
"Well, well, I can't let you lose your sleep this way, Jason; I'll get
some guards now."
"If you won't let me," said the boy quickly, "you ought to send for
Gray."
The old gentleman looked thoughtful.
"Of course, perhaps I ought--why, I will."
"He won't come again to-night," said Jason. "I shot close enough to
scare him, I reckon, Good-night, colonel."
"Thank you, my boy--good-night."