“I reckon you will, for a fact, as it’s my private impression that lovely Miss Spencer does n’t exert herself over much to be entertaining unless there happens to be a man in sight.  Great guns! how she did fling language the last time she blew in to see me!  But, Naida, it isn’t likely this little affair will require very long, and things are lots happier between us since my late shooting scrape.  For one thing, you and I understand each other better; then Mrs. Herndon has been quite decently civil.  When Fall comes I mean to take you East and put you in some good finishing school.  Don’t care quite as much about it as you did, do you?”

“Yes, I think I do, Bob.”  She strove bravely to express enthusiasm.  “The trouble is, I am so worried over your going off alone hunting after that man.”

He laughed, his eyes searching her face for the truth.  “Well, little girl, he won’t exactly be the first I ’ve had call to go after.  Besides, this is a particular case, and appeals to me in a sort of personal way.  It you only knew it, you’re about as deeply concerned in the result as I am, and as for me, I can never rest easy again until the matter is over with.”

“It’s that awful Murphy, is n’t it?”

“He’s the one I’m starting after first, and one sight at his right hand will decide whether he is to be the last as well.”

“I never supposed you would seek revenge, like a savage,” she remarked, quietly.  “You never used to be that way.”

“Good Lord, Naida, do you think I ’m low down enough to go out hunting that poor cuss merely to get even with him for trying to stick me with a knife?  Why, there are twenty others who have done as much, and we have been the best of friends afterwards.  Oh, no, lassie, it means more than that, and harks back many a long year.  I told you I saw a mark on his hand I would never forget—­but I saw that mark first fifteen years ago.  I ’m not taking my life in my hand to revenge the killing of Slavin, or in any memory of that little misunderstanding between the citizens of Glencaid and myself.  I should say not.  I have been slashed at and shot at somewhat promiscuously during the last five years, but I never permitted such little affairs to interfere with either business, pleasure, or friendship.  If this fellow Murphy, or whoever the man I am after may prove to be, had contented himself with endeavoring playfully to carve me, the account would be considered closed.  But this is a duty I owe a friend, a dead friend, to run to earth this murderer.  Do you understand now?  The fellow who did that shooting up at Bethune fifteen years ago had the same sort of a mark on his right hand as this one who killed Slavin.  That’s why I’m after him, and when I catch up he’ll either squeal or die.  He won’t be very likely to look on the matter as a joke.”

“But how do you know?”

“I never told you the whole story, and I don’t mean to now until I come back, and can make everything perfectly clear.  It would n’t do you any good the way things stand now, and would only make you uneasy.  But if you do any praying over it, my girl, pray good and hard that I may discover some means for making that fellow squeal.”