"But that is he!" he exclaimed.
Charity Biglow turned to the boy. "And what do you mean—"
"That's the boy I found in the garden, Ricky!"
"Is it?" She stared, fascinated, at the lean brown face, the untidy black hair, the bitter mouth, which their hostess had so skilfully caught in her unfinished drawing.
"So you've met Jeems." Miss Biglow looked at Val thoughtfully. "And what did you think of him?"
"It's rather—what did he think of me. He seemed to hate me. I don't know why. All I ever said to him was 'Hello.'"
"Jeems is a queer person—"
"Sam says that he is none too honest," observed Ricky, her attention still held by the picture.
Miss Biglow shook her head. "There is a sort of feud between the swamp people and the farmers around here. And neither side is wholly to be believed in their estimation of the other. Jeems isn't dishonest, and neither are a great many of the muskrat hunters. In the early days all kinds of outlaws and wanted men fled into the swamps and lived there with the hunters. One or two desperate men gave the whole of the swamp people a bad name and it has stuck. They are a strange folk back there in the fur country.