He looked from the girl to Willard. The Easterner was examining a small pistol that he had drawn from a yellow holster at his waist, so high on his waist that he had been compelled to bend his elbow in an acute angle to get it out. His hands were trembling, whether from the wetting he had received or from doubt as to the rider’s intentions, was a question that the rider did not bother with. He looked again at the girl. Doubt had come into her eyes; she was looking half fearfully at him, and he saw that she half suspected him of being a desperado, intent on doing harm. He grinned, moved to mirth.
She was reassured; that smile had done it. She returned it, a little ruefully. And she felt that, in view of the circumstances, she might dispense with formalities and get right down to business. For her seat was uncomfortable, and Aunt Martha and Uncle Jepson were anxious, to say nothing of Willard, who had placed his pistol behind him, determined, if the man turned out to be a highwayman, to defend his party to the last.
But still the rider did not move. There was no hurry; only Willard seemed to be really suffering, for the winter’s chill had not yet gone out of the air. But then, Willard had earned his ducking.
The girl cleared her throat. “We have had an accident,” she informed the rider, her voice a little husky.
At this word he swept his hat from his head and bowed to her. “Why, I reckon you have, ma’am,” he said. “Didn’t you have no driver?”
“Why, yes,” returned the girl hesitatingly, for she thought she detected sarcasm in his voice, and she had to look twice at him to make sure—and then she couldn’t have told. “The gentleman on the bank, there, is our driver.”
“The gentleman on the bank, eh?” drawled the rider. And now for the first time he seemed to become aware of Willard’s presence, for he looked narrowly at him. “Why, he’s all wet!” he exclaimed. “I expect he come pretty near drownin’, didn’t he, ma’am?” He looked again at the girl, astonishment in his eyes. “An’ so he drove you into that suck-hole, an’ he got throwed out! Wasn’t there no one to tell him that Calamity ain’t to be trusted?”
“Mr. Vickers told us to keep to the right after reaching the middle,” said the girl.
“I distinctly understood him to say the left, Ruth,” growled Willard.
The rider watched the girl’s face, saw the color come into it, and his lips twitched with some inward emotion. “I reckon your brother’s right, ma’am. Vickers wanted to drownd you-all.”