“I’m a-goin’ to come an’ git you—­some day.”

Since that day she had heard of him but once, and that was lately, when Arch Hawn had come to see her father and the two had talked a long time.  They were all well, Arch said, down in the mountains.  Jason had come back from the settlement school.  Little Aaron Honeycutt had bantered him in the road and Jason had gone wild.  He had galloped down to town, bought a Colt’s forty-five and a pint of whiskey, had ridden right up to old Aaron Honeycutt’s gate, shot off his pistol, and dared little Aaron to come out and fight.  Little Aaron wanted to go, but old Aaron held him back, and Jason sat on his nag at the gate and “cussed out” the whole tribe, and swore “he’d kill every dad-blasted one of ’em if only to git the feller who shot his daddy.”  Old Aaron had behaved mighty well, and he and old Jason had sent each other word that they would keep both the boys out of the trouble.  Then Arch had brought about another truce and little Jason had worked his crop and was making a man of himself.  It was Archer Hawn who had insisted that Mavis herself should go to school and had agreed to pay all her expenses, but in spite of her joy at that, she was heart-broken when he was gone, and when she caught her step-mother weeping in the kitchen a vague sympathy had drawn them for the first time a little nearer together.

From the top of the little hill her new home was visible across a creek and by the edge of a lane.  As she crossed a foot-bridge and made her way noiselessly along the dirt road she heard voices around a curve of the lane and she came upon a group of men leaning against a fence.  In the midst of them was her father, and they were arguing with him earnestly and he was shaking his head.

“Them toll-gates hain’t a-hurtin’ me none,” she heard him drawl.  “I don’t understand this business, an’ I hain’t goin’ to git mixed up in hit.”

Then he saw her coming and he stopped, and the others looked at her uneasily, she thought, as if wondering what she might have heard.

“Go on home, Mavis,” he said shortly, and as she passed on no one spoke until she was out of hearing.  Some mischief was afoot, but she was not worried, nor was her interest aroused at all.

A moment later she could see her step-mother seated on her porch and idling in the warm sun.  The new home was a little frame house, neat and well built.  There was a good fence around the yard and the garden, and behind the garden was an orchard of peach-trees and apple-trees.  The house was guttered and behind the kitchen was a tiny grape-arbor, a hen-house, and a cistern—­all strange appurtenances to Mavis.  The two spoke only with a meeting of the eyes, and while the woman looked her curiosity she asked no questions, and Mavis volunteered no information.

“Did you see Steve a-talkin’ to some fellers down the road?”

Mavis nodded.

“Did ye hear whut they was talkin’ about?”