easy," he said softly, without
looking up; his head was bent so that his hat quite concealed from the
schoolma'am his face, but if she had known him longer, perhaps she
would have gone carefully after that.

"As to your sneaking away from--wherever it was--surely, you ought to
know about that better than I do. One must go far to outdistance
dishonor, for a man's misdeeds are sure to follow him, soon or late. I
will not go into details--but you understand what I mean."

"No," said Weary, still with bent head, "I'll be darned if I do. And
if I did, I know about where to locate the source of all the
information you've loaded up on. Things were going smooth as silk till
Myrt Forsyth drifted out here--the red-headed little devil!"

"Mr. Davidson!" cried the schoolma'am, truly shocked.

"Oh, I'm revealing some more low, brutal instincts, I expect I'm liable
to reveal a lot more if I hang around much longer." He stopped, as if
there was more he wanted to say, and was doubtful of the wisdom of
saying it.

"I came over to say something--something particular--but I've changed
my mind. I guess yuh haven't much time to listen, and I don't believe
it would interest yuh as much as I thought it would--a while back. You
just go ahead and make a bosom friend uh Myrt Forsyth, Schoolma'am, and
believe every blamed lie she tells yuh. I won't be here to argue the
point. Looks to me like I'm about due to drift."

Miss Satterly, dumb with fear of what his words might mean, sat stiffly
while Weary got up and mounted Glory in a business like manner that was
extremely disquieting.

"I wish you could a cared, Girlie," he said with a droop of his
unsmiling mouth and a gloom in his eyes when he looked at her. "I was
a chump, I reckon, to ever imagine yuh could. Good-bye--and be good
to--yourself." He leaned to one side, swung backward his feet and
Glory, obeying the signal, wheeled and bounded away.

Miss Satterly watched him gallop up the long slope and the pluckety
pluckety of Glory's fleeing feet struck heavy, numbing blows upon her
heart. She wondered why she had refused to ride with him, when she did
want to go--she did. And why had she been so utterly hateful, after
waiting and watching, night after night, for him to come?

And just how much did he mean by being due to drift? He couldn't be
really angry--and what was he going to say--the thing he changed his
mind about. Was it--Well, he would come again in a few day