“They stuck up for ye ez far ez they could.  But ye see the parson hez got a holt upon Seth, havin’ caught him kissin’ a convert at camp meeting; and Deacon Turner knows suthin about Mrs. Rivers’s sister, who kicked over the pail and jumped the fence years ago, and she’s afeard a’ him.  But what I wanted to tell ye was that they’re all comin’ up here to take a look at ye—­some on ’em to-night.  You ain’t afeard, are ye?” she added, with a loud laugh.

“Well, it looks rather desperate, doesn’t it?” returned Jack, with dancing eyes.

“I’ll trust ye for all that,” said Melinda.  “And now I reckon I’ll trot along to the rancho.  Ye needn’t offer ter see me home,” she added, as Jack made a movement to accompany her.  “Everybody up here ain’t as fair-minded ez Silas and you, and Melinda Bird hez a character to lose!  So long!” With this she cantered away, a little heavily, perhaps, adjusting her yellow hat with both hands as she clattered down the steep hill.

That afternoon Mr. Hamlin drew largely on his convalescence to mount a half-broken mustang, and in spite of the rising afternoon wind to gallop along the highroad in quite as mischievous and breezy a fashion.  He was wont to allow his mustang’s nose to hang over the hind rails of wagons and buggies containing young couples, and to dash ahead of sober carryalls that held elderly “members in good standing.”

An accomplished rider, he picked up and brought back the flying parasol of Mrs. Deacon Stubbs without dismounting.  He finally came home a little blown, but dangerously composed.

There was the usual Sunday evening gathering at Windy Hill Rancho—­neighbors and their wives, deacons and the pastor—­but their curiosity was not satisfied by the sight of Mr. Hamlin, who kept his own room and his own counsel.  There was some desultory conversation, chiefly on church topics, for it was vaguely felt that a discussion of the advisability or getting rid of the guest of their host was somewhat difficult under this host’s roof, with the guest impending at any moment.  Then a diversion was created by some of the church choir practicing the harmonium with the singing of certain more or less lugubrious anthems.  Mrs. Rivers presently joined in, and in a somewhat faded soprano, which, however, still retained considerable musical taste and expression, sang, “Come, ye disconsolate.”  The wind moaned over the deep-throated chimney in a weird harmony with the melancholy of that human appeal as Mrs. Rivers sang the first verse:—­

     “Come, ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish,
       Come to the Mercy Seat, fervently kneel;
     Here bring your wounded hearts—­here tell your anguish,
       Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal!”

A pause followed, and the long-drawn, half-human sigh of the mountain wind over the chimney seemed to mingle with the wail of the harmonium.  And then, to their thrilled astonishment, a tenor voice, high, clear, but tenderly passionate, broke like a skylark over their heads in the lines of the second verse:—­