The boy called Cole made no reply to this, but kept his fine gray eyes on his captive.
A studious observer would have noted this boy’s remarkable face. His hair was coal-black and of heavy growth. In sharp contrast, his large eyes were a deep gray, almost blue, and the lashes that covered them were long and black as soot. The face was decidedly ascetic, the nose thin and almost Grecian. One noticed the mouth. It was youthful still, but even now there were settling about it faint traceries that bespoke determination. His was the face, almost, of a youth of twenty. But he had barely turned fourteen.
Joshua Cole was the boy’s name. His schoolmates called him Cole, not because of his precocious gravity, but after the manner of boys of the age of twelve or thereabout as they begin to assume the ways of men. When they called him Josh they were in a frivolous mood and set on teasing him. But teasing Joshua Cole was fruitless. He merely smiled and looked steadily at his would-be tormentors out of his tolerant, grave gray eyes—eyes at the same time so serious and so whimsical as to baffle them to silence. A strange boy was Joshua Cole, always deep in some original, boyish experiment, as in the present instance, but universally liked by his associates.
“We gotta be gettin’ to school,” Towhead announced, after the four had watched the circular progress of the slug in silence for a time.
“Gee whiz! There goes the second bell now!”
“C’m’on, Cole! Ole Madmallet won’t do a thing to us!”
“Wait a minute,” said Joshua Cole softly. “He’s gone pretty near round the chip now. When he gets clean back to where he started from, you fellas might’s well say good-by to yer ole marbles.”
“But I ain’t gonta be tardy!” expostulated Towhead, and grabbed up the moony agate.
“All right. Go ahead. You’re a hot sport, you are!”
“Ne’mind, Cole. Wait’ll Ole Hothatchet grabs you by the neck!”