s either! So I rode away without disturbin' you nor the
birds nor the squirrels. Talkin' with Cress that night, she said ez how
it was a fair sample of what happened every day, and that you'd always
treated her fair like the others. So she allowed that she'd go down to
Sacramento, and get some things agin her and Seth bein' married next
month, and she reckoned she wouldn't trouble you nor the school agin.
Hark till I've done, Mr. Ford," he continued, as the young man made a
slight movement of deprecation. "Well, I agreed. But arter she got to
Sacramento and bought some fancy fixin's, she wrote to me and sez ez how
she'd been thinkin' the hull thing over, and she reckoned that she and
Seth were too young to marry, and the engagement had better be broke.
And I broke it for her."

"But how?" asked the bewildered master.

"Gin'rally with this gun," returned McKinstry with slow gravity,
indicating the rifle he was carrying, "for I ain't kam. I let on to
Seth's father that if I ever found Seth and Cressy together again, I'd
shoot him. It made a sort o' coolness betwixt the families, and hez
given some comfort to them low-down Harrisons; but even the law, I
reckon, recognizes a father's rights. And ez Cress sez, now ez Seth's
out o' the way, thar ain't no reason why she can't go back to school and
finish her eddication. And I reckoned she was right. And we both agreed
that ez she'd left school to git them store clothes, it was only fair
that she'd give the school the benefit of 'em."

The case seemed more hopeless than ever. The master knew that the man
beside him might hardly prove as lenient to a second objection at his
hand. But that very reason, perhaps, impelled him, now that he knew his
danger, to consider it more strongly as a duty, and his pride revolted
from a possible threat underlying McKinstry's confidences. Nevertheless
he began gently:

"But you are quite sure you won't regret that you didn't avail yourself
of this broken engagement, and your daughter's outfit--to send her to
some larger boarding-school in Sacramento or San Francisco? Don't
you think she may find it dull, and soon tire of the company of mere
children when she has already known the excitement of"--he was about to
say "a lover," but checked himself, and added, "a young girl's freedom?"

"Mr. Ford," returned McKinstry, with the slow and fatuous misconception
of a one-ideaed man, "when I said just now that, lookin' inter that kam,
peaceful schoo