An hour later they were riding side by side--Hale and June--on through the lights and shadows toward Lonesome Cove. Uncle Billy turned back from the gate to the porch.
"He ain"t come back hyeh jes" fer coal," said ole Hon.
"Shucks!" said Uncle Billy; "you women-folks can"t think "bout nothin"
"cept one thing. He"s too old fer her."
"She"ll git ole enough fer HIM--an" you menfolks don"t think less--you jes" talk less." And she went back into the kitchen, and on the porch the old miller puffed on a new idea in his pipe.
For a few minutes the two rode in silence and not yet had June lifted her eyes to him.
"You"ve forgotten me, June."
"No, I hain"t, nuther."
"You said you"d be waiting for me." June"s lashes went lower still.
"I was."
"Well, what"s the matter? I"m mighty sorry I couldn"t get back sooner."
"Huh!" said June scornfully, and he knew Uncle Billy in his guess as to the trouble was far afield, and so he tried another tack.
"I"ve been over to the county seat and I saw lots of your kinfolks over there." She showed no curiosity, no surprise, and still she did not look up at him.
"I met your cousin, Loretta, over there and I carried her home behind me on an old mule"--Hale paused, smiling at the remembrance--and still she betrayed no interest.
"She"s a mighty pretty girl, and whenever I"d hit that old---"
"She hain"t!"--the words were so shrieked out that Hale was bewildered, and then he guessed that the falling out between the fathers was more serious than he had supposed.
"But she isn"t as nice as you are," he added quickly, and the girl"s quivering mouth steadied, the tears stopped in her vexed dark eyes and she lifted them to him at last.
"She ain"t?"
"No, indeed, she ain"t."
For a while they rode along again in silence. June no longer avoided his eyes now, and the unspoken question in her own presently came out:
"You won"t let Uncle Rufe bother me no more, will ye?"
"No, indeed, I won"t," said Hale heartily. "What does he do to you?"
"Nothin"--"cept he"s always a-teasin" me, an"--an" I"m afeered o" him."
"Well, I"ll take care of Uncle Rufe."
"I knowed YOU"D say that," she said. "Pap and Dave always laughs at me,"
and she shook her head as though she were already threatening her bad uncle with what Hale would do to him, and she was so serious and trustful that Hale was curiously touched. By and by he lifted one flap of his saddle-pockets again.
"I"ve got some candy here for a nice little girl," he said, as though the subject had not been mentioned before. "It"s for you. Won"t you have some?"
"I reckon I will," she said with a happy smile.
Hale watched her while she munched a striped stick of peppermint. Her crimson bonnet had fallen from her sunlit hair and straight down from it to her bare little foot with its stubbed toe just darkening with dried blood, a sculptor would have loved the rounded slenderness in the curving long lines that shaped her brown throat, her arms and her hands, which were prettily shaped but so very dirty as to the nails, and her dangling bare leg. Her teeth were even and white, and most of them flashed when her red lips smiled. Her lashes were long and gave a touching softness to her eyes even when she was looking quietly at him, but there were times, as he had noticed already, when a brooding look stole over them, and then they were the lair for the mysterious loneliness that was the very spirit of Lonesome Cove. Some day that little nose would be long enough, and some day, he thought, she would be very beautiful.
"Your cousin, Loretta, said she was coming over to see you."
June"s teeth snapped viciously through the stick of candy and then she turned on him and behind the long lashes and deep down in the depth of those wonderful eyes he saw an ageless something that bewildered him more than her words.
"I hate her," she said fiercely.
"Why, little girl?" he said gently.
"I don"t know--" she said--and then the tears came in earnest and she turned her head, sobbing. Hale helplessly reached over and patted her on the shoulder, but she shrank away from him.
"Go away!" she said, digging her fist into her eyes until her face was calm again.
They had reached the spot on the river where he had seen her first, and beyond, the smoke of the cabin was rising above the undergrowth.
"Lordy!" she said, "but I do git lonesome over hyeh."
"Wouldn"t you like to go over to the Gap with me sometimes?"
Straightway her face was a ray of sunlight.
"Would--I like--to--go--over--"
She stopped suddenly and pulled in her horse, but Hale had heard nothing.
"h.e.l.lo!" shouted a voice from the bushes, and Devil Judd Tolliver issued from them with an axe on his shoulder. "I heerd you"d come back an"
I"m glad to see ye." He came down to the road and shook Hale"s hand heartily.
"Whut you been cryin" about?" he added, turning his hawk-like eyes on the little girl.
"Nothin"," she said sullenly.
"Did she git mad with ye "bout somethin"?" said the old man to Hale.
"She never cries "cept when she"s mad." Hale laughed.
"You jes" hush up--both of ye," said the girl with a sharp kick of her right foot.
"I reckon you can"t stamp the ground that fer away from it," said the old man dryly. "If you don"t git the better of that all-fired temper o"
yourn hit"s goin" to git the better of you, an" then I"ll have to spank you agin."
"I reckon you ain"t goin" to whoop me no more, pap. I"m a-gittin" too big."
The old man opened eyes and mouth with an indulgent roar of laughter.