“There you go! You are forgetting you are not in the South. It is not the man who refuses to accept a challenge who is ridiculed in this part of the country; it is the fellow who sends the challenge.”
The Virginian shook his head.
“No,” he confessed, “I am not used to such a condition of affairs, and I forget how the people of the North look on dueling. Well, I can’t help the girl that way.”
“Wait; perhaps your time will come. We are going down the river with the drive. No one can tell what may happen.”
Jack looked at Frank queerly.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
“I do not mean anything in particular, but I have noticed that fate sometimes works in wondrous ways. Jennie Wren is not married to Mike Sullivan yet, and she may not be forced to marry him. If her father should die, she could do as she pleased.”
“And if Sullivan should die——”
“Exactly.”
The two lads looked at each other; they understood each other. It is possible that in the heart of each was born a wish that Jennie Wren might be freed to follow the inclinations of her heart, even though it were at the expense of a human life as worthless as that of Mike Sullivan; but if either thought such a thing, neither expressed the thought in words.