“Mayn’t I show you Belle Plain?” asked Betty quickly.

But Carrington shook his head.

“I don’t care anything about that,” he said.  “I didn’t come here to see Belle Plain.”

“You certainly are candid,” said Betty.

“I intend to be honest with you always.”

“Dear me—­but I don’t know that I shall particularly like it.  Do you think it was quite fair to select the boat you did, or was your resolution to be always honest formed later?” demanded Betty severely.

He looked at her with great sweetness of expression.

“I didn’t advise that boat for speed, only for safety.  Betty, doesn’t it mean anything to you that I love you?  I admit that I wish it had been twice as slow!” he added reflectively, as an afterthought.  He looked at her steadily, and Betty’s dark lashes drooped as the color mounted to her face.

“I don’t,” she said quickly.  She rose from her chair, and Carrington followed her example with a lithe movement that bespoke muscles in good training.  She led the way through the wide hall and out to the porch.

“Now I am going to show you all over the place,” she announced resolutely.  She stood on the top step, looking off into the flaming west where the sun rode low in the heavens.  “Isn’t it lovely, Mr. Carringtonisn’t it beautiful?”

“Very beautiful!” Carrington’s glance was fixed on her face.

“If you don’t care to see Belle Plain,” began Betty, rather indignantly.  “No, I don’t, Betty.  This is enough for me.  I’ll come for that some other time if you’ll be good enough to let me?”

“Then you expect to remain in the neighborhood?”

“I’ve given up the river, and I’m going to get hold of some land—­”

“Land?” said Betty, with a rising inflection.

“Yes, land.”

“I thought you were a river-man?”

“I’m a river-man no longer.  I am going to be a planter now.  But I’ll tell you why, and all about it some other day.”  Then he held out his hand.  “Goodby,” he added.

“Are you going—­good-by, Mr. Carrington,” and Betty’s fingers tingled with his masterful clasp long after he had gone.

Carrington sauntered slowly down the path to the highroad.

“She didn’t ask me to come back—­an oversight,” he told himself cheerfully.

Just beyond the gates he met that same young fellow he had seen at New Madrid.  Norton nodded good-naturedly as he passed, and Carrington, glancing back, saw that he turned in at Belle Plain.  He shrugged his shoulders, and went on his way not rejoicing.

CHAPTER XV

The shooting-match at Boggs’

The judge’s faith in the reasonableness of mankind having received a staggering blow, there began a somewhat furtive existence for himself, for Solomon Mahaffy, and for the boy.  They kept to little frequented byways, and usually it was the early hours of morning, or the cool of late afternoons when they took the road.