She looked up with a laugh, her eyes and teeth gleaming; her golden hair still showed its color beneath the spotless whiteness of her voluminous headgear, and the clear tints of her complexion seemed all the more delicate and fresh in the snowy pallor of the surroundings and the grayness of the evening.
"I reckon I'd better take it along," and once more she addressed herself to the effort to insert the dip into the lantern.
Emory hardly heard. His pulse was quick. His eye glittered. He breathed hard as, with both hands in his pockets, he came close to her.
"Mill'cent," he said, "I told ye the t'other day ez ye thunk a heap too much o' that thar stranger—"
"An' I tole ye, bubby, that I didn't think nuthin' o' nobody but you-uns," she interrupted, with an effort to placate his jealousy. The little jocularity which she affected dwindled and died before the steady glow of his gaze, and she falteringly looked at him, her unguided hands futilely fumbling with the lantern.
"Ye can't fool me," he stoutly asseverated. "Ye think mo' o' him 'n o' me, kase ye 'low he air rich, an' book-larned, an' smooth-fingered, an' finified ez a gal, an' goin' ter buy the hotel. I say, hotel! Now I'll tell ye what he is—I'll tell ye! He's a criminal. He's runnin' from the law. He's hidin' in the old hotel that he's purtendin' ter buy."
She stared wide-eyed and pallid, breathless and waiting.
He interpreted her expression as doubt, denial.
"It's gospel sure," he cried. "Fur this very evenin' I met a gang o' men an' the sheriff's deputy down yander by the sulphur spring 'bout sundown, an' he 'lowed ez they war a-sarchin' fur a criminal ez war skulkin' round hyarabout lately—ez they wanted a man fur hevin' c'mitted murder."
"But ye didn't accuse him, surely; ye hed no right ter s'picion him. Uncle Sim! Oh, my Lord! Ye surely wouldn't! Oh, Uncle Sim!"