The news got round Oxbow Village very speedily that Mr. Clement Lindsay, generally considered the accepted lover of Miss Susan Posey, had arrived in that place.  Now it had come to be the common talk of the village that young Gifted Hopkins and Susan Posey were getting to be mighty thick with each other, and the prevailing idea was that Clement’s visit had reference to that state of affairs.  Some said that Susan had given her young man the mitten, meaning thereby that she had signified that his services as a suitor were dispensed with.  Others thought there was only a wavering in her affection for her lover, and that he feared for her constancy, and had come to vindicate his rights.

Some of the young fellows, who were doubtless envious of Gifted’s popularity with the fair sex, attempted in the most unjustifiable manner to play upon his susceptible nature.  One of them informed him that he had seen that Lindsay fellah raound taown with the darndest big stick y’ ever did see.  Looked kind o’ savage and wild like.  Another one told him that perhaps he’d better keep a little shady; that are chap that had got the mittin was praowlin’ abaout—­with a pistil,—­one o’ them Darringers,—­abaout as long as your thumb, an’ fire a bullet as big as a p’tatah-ball,—­’a fellah carries one in his breeches-pocket, an’ shoots y’ right threugh his own pahnts, withaout ever takin’ on it aout of his pocket.  The stable-keeper, who, it may be remembered, once exchanged a few playful words with Mr. Gridley, got a hint from some of these unfeeling young men, and offered the resources of his stable to the youth supposed to be in peril.

“I ’ve got a faast colt, Mr. Hopkins, that ’ll put twenty mild betwixt you an’ this here village, as quick as any four huffs ’ll dew it in this here caounty, if you should want to get away suddin.  I’ve heern tell there was some lookin’ raound here that wouldn’t be wholesome to meet,—­jest say the word, Mr. Hopkins, an’ I ’ll have ye on that are colt’s back in less than no time, an’ start ye off full jump.  There’s a good many that’s kind o’ worried for fear something might happen to ye, Mr. Hopkins,—­y’ see fellahs don’t like to have other chaps cuttin’ on ’em aout with their gals.”

Gifted Hopkins had become excessively nervous by this time.  It is true that everything in his intimacy with Susan Posey, so far, might come under the general head of friendship; but he was conscious that something more was in both their thoughts.  Susan had given him mysterious hints that her relations with Clement had undergone a change, but had never had quite courage enough, perhaps had too much delicacy, to reveal the whole truth.