He lifted one hand to that miracle of nature, the snowy stalagmite that expressed the marvels wrought by time, that aggregated drops of water, each with its charge of lime, falling and falling on the floor beneath till the great pillar stood complete. As he leaned thus he looked down reproachfully upon her.
It was hard for her to regain her wonted state of mind. So fluttered, so elated she had been.
"It ain't much later than common," she said absently, fingering a red bead necklace around her throat. He, who knew her simple gauds, was aware that she rarely wore it and accounted it a treasure. He divined that it had been donned to rejoice the eyes of an admiring stranger.
"I s'pose he war all streck of a heap?" he said craftily, his eyes narrowing as he looked intently at her.
"I dunno 'bout that," she laughed coquettishly.
"What sort o' appearin' man war he?" Eugene demanded, arrogating the prerogative of inquisition.
He was not altogether at ease amongst the men, and was sometimes conscious of a disadvantage with them, owing to the anomaly of his position, forced into a crime against the Federal law, of which he became guilty to evade trial for a crime against the State law of which he knew himself innocent. He had not demonstrated any great judgment or capacity in this course, and he knew it affected their estimate. Other men had done more heinous deeds who swaggered openly in the coves. It was in the first rush of terror, the first ill-considered impulse that he had come here, and once entrusted with the moonshiners' secret he could not, he would not draw back. Ill luck might befall them, and here indeed was a danger. The fate of the informer, real or suspected, was a more inevitable terror than all else that menaced him. But he felt all a man's ascendency over the feminine mind, and indeed she divined naught as she replied to his questions.
"Waal, he is just a pretty boy—plumb beautiful! Mighty nigh ez sweet-faced ez any gal."
"I say 'boy'!" he replied incredulously. "They tell me ez he laid Tawm out flat with one lick. Tawm hev been lame in the shoulder ever sence."
"Waal—he is surely strong, though only middle-sized, but mild-eyed—sorter babyfied."