This, too, was beyond Mandy.  Sammy continued, as she finished her preparations for retiring; “This here house is plenty big enough for me, least wise it would be if it had one more room like the cabin in Mutton Hollow; carpets would be mighty dirty and unhandy to clean when the men folks come trampin’ in with their muddy boots; I wouldn’t want to wear no dresses so fine I couldn’t knock ’round in the brush with them; and it would be awful to have nothin’ to do; as for a carriage, I wouldn’t swap Brownie for a whole city full of carriages.”  She slipped into bed and stretched out luxuriously.  “Do you reckon I could be a fine lady, and be as I am now, a livin’ here in the hills?”

The next day Mandy went back to her home on Jake Creek.  And in the evening Sammy’s father, with Wash Gibbs, returned, both men and horses showing the effects of a long, hard ride.

CHAPTER VIII.

“Why ain’t we got no folks.”

Preachin’ Bill says “There’s a heap o’ difference in most men, but Jim Lane now he’s more different than ary man you ever seed.  Ain’t no better neighbor’n Jim anywhere.  Ride out o’ his way any time t’ do you a favor.  But you bet there ain’t ary man lives can ask Jim any fool questions while Jim’s a lookin’ at him.  Tried it onct myself.  Jim was a waitin’ at th’ ferry fer Wash Gibbs, an’ we was a talkin’ ’long right peart ‘bout crops an’ th’ weather an’ such, when I says, says I, like a dumb ol’ fool, ’How’d you like it down in Texas, Jim, when you was there that time?’ I gonies!  His jaw shet with a click like he’d cocked a pistol, an’ that look o’ hisn, like he was a seein’ plumb through you, come int’ his eyes, an’ he says, says he, quiet like, ‘D’ you reckon that rain over on James yesterday raised th’ river much?’ An’ ’fore I knowed it, I was a tellin’ him how that ol’ red bull o’ mine treed th’ Perkins’ boys when they was a possum huntin’.”

Many stories of the Bald Knobber days, when the law of the land was the law of rifle and rope, were drifting about the country side, and always, when these tales were recited, the name of Jim Lane was whispered; while the bolder ones wondered beneath their breath where Jim went so much with that Wash Gibbs, whose daddy was killed by the Government.

Mr. Lane was a tall man, well set up, with something in his face and bearing that told of good breeding; southern blood, one would say, by the dark skin, and the eyes, hair, and drooping mustache of black.

His companion, Wash Gibbs, was a gigantic man; taller and heavier, even, than the elder Matthews, but more loosely put together than Old Matt; with coarse, heavy features, and, as Grandma Bowles said, “the look of a sheep killin’ dog.”  Grandma, being very near her journey’s end, could tell the truth even about Wash Gibbs, but others spoke of the giant only in whispers, save when they spoke in admiration of his physical powers.