Minutes passed. Jessamy stared at the open book in her hands, but had not read a word. Why was Old Man Selden keeping their guest out there in the night? A girlish pout which might have surprised Oliver Drew, had he seen it, puckered her lips. The girl looked down at her red-silk dress and the natty buckles on her French-heel pumps, and the pout grew more pronounced.
She went out doors, but no sound came to her save the intimate night sounds of the wilderness.
"Darn the luck!" she cried in exasperation, her serenity for once completely unavailing.
Five minutes later she stepped from the gorgeous dress with a sigh of resignation. She kicked off the pumps and pulled on her morocco-top riding boots. She donned shirt and riding skirt, and slipped out by her own door into the young night.
Cautiously she approached the stables and corrals, but found nobody. Lights gleamed in the windows of Hurlock's and Winthrop's cabins, and from the latter came the doleful strains of Bolar's accordion. She doubted if Selden and Oliver were in either of these houses.
She walked up the hill toward the spring, and presently heard the bass boom of Old Man Selden's voice.
A little later, flat on the ground, she was wriggling her way through tall ferns toward two indistinct figures seated on a fallen pine. Like an Indian she crept on silently, till by and by she lay quite still, close enough to hear every word that passed between the men who sat in front of her. And her conscience seemed not to trouble her at all.
It had been practicable to come to a pause at some little distance from the two, for their voices carried a long way through the tranquil wilderness night. Behind her and up the hill the frogs were croaking at the spring. Their horse-fiddling ceased abruptly, as if they had been suddenly disturbed, and it was not immediately continued. Trained to read a meaning in Nature's signs, she wondered at this; then presently she heard a stealthy step between her and the spring.
Lifting her head and shoulders above the fronded plants, she saw a dark, crouched shape approaching warily. Some one had walked past the spring and disturbed the croaking choir. She ducked low and waited breathlessly, hoping that this second would-be eavesdropper, whoever he might be, would not come upon her engaged in a like pursuit. At the same time she was trying to hear what Selden was saying to Oliver Drew.
It seemed from Old Adam's slightly hesitating manner that he was as yet not well launched on the subject that had caused him to pilot Oliver to this lonely spot. He said: