een reading
aloud to her father, but he had fallen asleep beside her in his big
armchair. During these convalescent days he usually took a nap after
dinner and after supper. He called it forty winks, but to an
unprejudiced listener the voice of his slumber sounded like a sawmill in
action.

The gate clicked, and a man walked up the path. He did not know that the
soft eyes of the girl, sitting in the porch shadows, lit with pleasure
at sight of him. Nothing in her voice or in her greeting told him so.

He took off his hat and stood awkwardly with one booted foot on the
lowest step.

"I came to see Mr. Wadley," he presently explained, unaccountably short
of small talk.

She looked at her father and laughed. The saw was ripping through a
series of knots in alternate crescendo and diminuendo. "Shall I wake
him? He likes to sleep after eating. I think it does him good."

"Don't you! I'll come some other time."

"Couldn't you wait a little? He doesn't usually sleep long." The girl
suggested it hospitably. His embarrassment relieved any she might
otherwise have felt.

"I reckon not."

At the end of that simple sentence he stuck, and because of it Jack
Roberts blushed. It was absurd. There was no sense in it, he told
himself. It never troubled him to meet men. He hadn't felt any shyness
when there had been a chance to function in action for her. But now he
was all feet and hands before this slip of a girl. Was it because of
that day when she had come flying between him and the guns of Dinsmore's
lynching-party? He wanted to thank her, to tell her how deeply grateful
he had been for the thought that had inspired her impulse. Instead of
which he was, he did not forget to remind himself later, as expressive
as a bump on a log.

"Have you seen anything of Mr. Ridley?" she asked.

"No, miss. He saved yore father's life from Pete Dinsmore. I reckon you
know that."

"Yes. I saw him for a moment. Poor boy! I think he is worrying himself
sick. If you meet him will you tell him that everything's all right. Dad
would like to see him."

Their voices had dropped a note in order not to waken her father. For
the same reason she had come down the steps and was moving with him
toward the gate.

If Jack had known how to say good-bye they would probably have parted
at the fence, but he was not socially adequate for the business of
turning his back gracefully on a young woman and walking away. As he
backed from her he blurted ou