For a moment Gibbs tried to return the look.  He failed.  Something he read in the dark face before him—­some meaning light in those black eyes—­made him tremble and he felt, rather than saw, Jim’s hand resting quietly now inside the hickory shirt near his left arm pit.  The big man’s face went white beneath the tan, his eyes wavered and shifted, he hung his head and shuffled his feet uneasily, like an overgrown school-boy brought sharply to task by the master.

Then Jim, his hand still inside his shirt, drawled, softly, but with a queer metallic ring in his voice, “Do you reckon it’s a goin’ t’ storm again?”

At the commonplace question, the bully drew a long breath and looked around.  “We might have a spell o’ weather,” he muttered; “but I don’t guess it’ll be t’night.”

Then Sammy returned and they had supper.

Next to his daughter, Jim Lane loved his violin, and with good reason, for the instrument had once belonged to his great-grandfather, who, tradition says, was a musician of no mean ability.

Preachin’ Bill “‘lowed there was a heap o’ difference between a playin’ a violin an’ jest fiddlin’.  You wouldn’t know some fellers was a makin’ music, if you didn’t see ’em a pattin’ their foot; but hit ain’t that a way with Jim Lane.  He sure do make music, real music.”  As no one ever questioned Bill’s judgment, it is safe to conclude that Mr. Lane inherited something of his great-grandfather’s ability; along with his treasured instrument.

When supper was over, and Wash Gibbs had gone on his way; Jim took the violin from its peg above the fireplace, and, tucking it lovingly under his chin, gave himself up to his favorite pastime, while Sammy moved busily about the cabin, putting things right for the night.

When her evening tasks were finished, the girl came and stood before her father.  At once the music ceased and the violin was laid carefully aside.  Sammy seated herself on her father’s knee.

“Law’, child, but you’re sure growin’ up,” said Jim, with a mock groan at her weight.

“Yes, Daddy, I reckon I’m about growed; I’ll be nineteen come Christmas.”

“O shucks!” ejaculated the man.  “It wasn’t more’n last week that you was washin’ doll clothes, down by the spring.”

The young woman laughed.  “I didn’t wash no doll clothes last week,” she said.  Then her voice changed, and that wide, questioning look, the look that made one think so of her father, came into her eyes.  “There’s something I want to ask you, Daddy Jim.  You—­you know—­Ollie’s goin’ away, an’—­an’—­an’ I was thinkin’ about it all day yesterday, an’, Daddy, why ain’t we got no folks?”

Mr. Lane stirred uneasily.  Sammy continued, “There’s the Matthews’s, they’ve got kin back in Illinois; Mandy Ford’s got uncles and aunts over on Lang Creek; Jed Holland’s got a grandad and mam, and even Preachin’ Bill talks about a pack o’ kin folks over in Arkansaw.  Why ain’t we got no folks, Daddy?”