“Now I didn’t come hunting your pop to-day,” he went on, “although I’m on the lookout for him all the time, and—— Tell me, do you care much about your pop?”
“Well, he’s the onliest pop I’ve got,” she naively reminded him. “But I don’t care much about him. He’s awful ornery.”
“Quite right. He’s all of that. But we’ll forget him for now. I came over to-day to ask you to take me to—a friend of ours.” She looked up quickly. “Uncle Eb tells me he’s sick, and I want to see him. Will you guide me?”
Dubiously she looked all about. Her whispered reply was hardly audible.
“We’ve got to go careful. The detective fellers, they’re a-watchin’ all round—mebbe they’re up into some of these trees right now. But—can you help him some way?”
“I’m going to try.”
“All right, we’ll go. Cut me a little more wood while I take this into the house. Mom, she’s abed yet; she don’t feel good this mornin’. But she ain’t real sick. We’ll go pretty quick.”
With another smile at him she gathered up wood and hastened in. And Hammerless Hampton set his gun against the wall and looked around, marveling at the brightness of the sun and the sweetness of the air and the cheeriness of the birds. Even the harsh cries of the bluejays in the woods sounded musical. In all the Traps at that moment he could perceive not one discordant note of sound or color. Indeed, something disagreeable seemed magically to have vanished from the world, and it was good to be alive.
And something had vanished: something nebulous, intangible, yet real and rock-hard: the two-sided wall of Pride. And Douglas, feeling that all was well with the universe, began lustily swinging the ax in the service of the girl who was glad he had come visiting.