As Virginia sat on the gallery, listening subconsciously for the drumming of Wiley’s racing motor 25up the road, she ran over in her mind the circumstances of his visit; and she could explain them all but one. Why, after failing of his mission, and narrowly escaping her mother’s gun, had he waved his hand and smiled so gayly as he thundered away up the street? Had he other schemes more subtle; or was he simply reckless, regarding even this adventure as a joke? As a boy he had been both–a crafty schemer and reckless doer–but now he was grown to a man. And if the lines about his mouth were any criterion he would soon be coming back to carry out by stealth what he failed to accomplish by assault. So she, too, waited patiently, to foil his machinations and uphold the honor of the Huffs.
In the good old days it had never been forgotten that the Huffs belonged to the Virginia quality, while the Holmans came from Maine; hence the Colonel’s relations with Honest John Holman had at first been strictly business. John Holman was a Northerner, with no social graces and abstemious to a fault, but when his commercial honor upon a certain occasion had saved the Colonel from bankruptcy he had cast the traditions of the South to the winds and taken Honest John as his friend. “My friend,” he called him and neither his wife nor his enemies could shake the Colonel’s faith in his partner. Then, after years of mutual trust, the panic had come on, and the crash in Paymaster stock; and as their fortunes went tumbling and ugly rumors filled the air they had broken 26their friendship completely. Yet so great was his love for his old-time friend that he had never openly accused him; and Honest John Holman, after months of somber silence, had moved away and started a cow ranch. But it was a question of honesty between the two men and their children had never forgotten. Ten years had passed since they had been boy and girl together, but the moment they met the old quarrel flashed up again and now the feud was on.
A boisterous blast of wind, whirling dust and papers down the street, announced the beginning of another sandstorm; and Death Valley Charley, who had been sitting outside the gate, came muttering up the steps. Behind him trotted Heine, his worshipful little dog, and as Virginia’s pet cat suddenly arched its back, Death Valley took Heine in his arms.
“Can’t you hear ’em?” he asked tiptoeing rapidly up to Virginia. “It’s them big guns, over in Europe. It’s them forty-two centimeter howitzers and the French seventy-fives in the trenches along the Somme.”
“Do you think so?” murmured Virginia, smoothing down her cat’s back, “it sounds like blasting to me.”
“No–big guns!” repeated Charley, regarding her intently through his wavering, sun-blinded eyes, and then he burst into a laugh. “You can hear ’em, can’t you, Heine?” he cried to his dog, and Heine squirmed ecstatically and sneezed. “Hah, that’s 27my little dog–you’re so confectionate! Now get down on the floor, and don’t you go near that cat.”
He put down the dog and advanced closer to Virginia.
“He’s coming!” he whispered. “I can hear him, plain–jurrr, jurrr; hud, hud, hud, hud, hud!”
“Who’s coming?” demanded Virginia, looking swiftly up the road.
“Why–him! The man you’re waiting for. Can’t you hear him! Hrrrr–rud! He’s coming to grab you and take you away in his auto!”