And Webb called back in cheery greeting: "_Hey_, Pete!"

Through the cloud of dust Nancy had caught a glimpse of a pair of merry
eyes set deep in a face as brown as the dark shirt the man wore.
Turning impulsively in her seat she noticed, with an unexplainable
sense of pleasure, that the bare head of the rider was exceptionally
well shaped and covered with short curly hair. Then, to her sudden
discomfiture, the rider wheeled directly in the road and pulled his
horse up short.

It was, of course, because he was the first real person she had seen on
this big lonely Island that prompted her to nod ever so slightly in
response to his friendly wave! Then she turned discreetly back to Webb.

"Who is he?" she asked, in what she tried to make an indifferent tone.

"Peter Hyde an' as nice a young fellar as ever come to Freedom! Ain't
been here much more'n a week and knows everybody. He's old man
Judson's hired man and he's goin' to make somethin' of that ten-acre
strip of Judson's some day or my name ain't Cyrenus Webb!"

"_Judson's hired man_!" cried Nancy, chagrined. What _would_ Anne
think of her--to have recognized, even in the slightest degree, the
impertinence of this fellow! Her face burned at the thought.

"Seems to have a lot of learnin' but he's awful simple like and a
hustler. Nobody knows whereabouts he come from--jes' dropped by out of
some advertisement old Judson put in the papers up Burlington way."

"Tell me more about Freedom," broke in Nancy with dignity. "Is it a
very old place?"

"Wal, it's jest as old as this Island, though I ain't much on readin'
or dates. Folks on Nor' Hero's pretty proud of the hul Island and
B'lindy sez as how it's printed that folks settled here long 'fore
anyone, exceptin' the Indians, ever heard of Manhattan Island whar New
York is. Used to be French first round here but they didn't stay long,
and then the English come down 'fore the Revolution and the Leavitts
with them, I guess. This here Island's named fur Ethan Allen, you
know, and folks sez old Jonathan, thet works up at Happy House, is a
connection of his. All the folks round here's related some way or
other to them pi'neers and I guess if we hed to put up a fight now we'd
do it jest as brave as them Green Mountain Boys! The old smithy's been
standin' on the four corners for nigh onto one hundred years and the
meetin' house facin' the commons, B'lindy sez, is older than the
smithy. And up the Leavitt ro