Now I was speedily destined to another shock, almost as great. How far I had gone I cannot say, but all at once I knew that I was looking down upon a plant about a foot in height, with green stem and yellow leaves. I halted as though turned to stone, but I did not think. I couldn't think. My mind refused its office, and in the face of what I took to be a momentous discovery, stood still. Almost simultaneously with my finding this significant growth the third shock came, as important in its way as either of the other two, and far more ominous.
"Whut 'n' hell yo' doin' prowlin' 'roun' here?"
The voice was harsh and deep; indignation and rage ran through it.
The savage tones brought me to myself; they acted on my senses as a battery might on my flesh. I stood erect and threw my head up. The smith was not a dozen steps away. Where he had come from, how he had got there, and why he was there I could not guess. He was dressed as I had seen him at the forge on the occasion of my first visit to Hebron; plainly he had not come courting in that garb. One hand held a large club, in a position almost of menace. I brought a serious, determined expression to my face, and looked him squarely in the eyes. In that moment as we stood in silence, a darkness spread over the glen, and a cool breath as from a summer storm cloud blew upon us; I saw it lift and drop the brown hair on the forehead of the man facing me. He had me at a disadvantage. He had doubtless seen me coming from the direction of the pool, and weaker circumstantial evidence than this has condemned many a man. If he supposed for a moment that I had been spying upon the privacy of the girl he loved—and that this idea was in full possession of his mind I did not doubt—then mischief was brewing, and from his standpoint, justly so. Had our positions been reversed, had I seen him skulking away from that fringe of greenery, I doubt if I would have given him the chance he offered me. All this raced swiftly through my brain in that short period following his hard question, and though my first feeling, a very human one, was of cold and haughty resentment, I quelled this immediately as both dangerous and unjust, and decided to speak him fairly and honestly. So I said:
"I might ask the same of you, Buck Steele."
I purposely pitched my voice low. Not that I feared she would hear it, for I realized the pool must be out of earshot from where we stood, but there is a certain low tone which permits of modulation and inflection carrying greater convincing power than when spoken in a higher key. I paused only long enough to take breath after my first sentence, then resumed.
"It's none of your business what I am doing here, but I am going to tell you, because, in a way, you have a right to know."
There flashed upon me the thought that I must play for time. If Lessie had not left the pool she would leave soon, for a storm impended. In what direction she would go to reach home I had no notion. She might come straight down the glen where we were. In any event, if blows were to be struck, and in my heart I believed they would come before we parted, it would be better if the girl was not in the neighborhood. This train of reasoning came and passed without interrupting my flow of speech.
"It's not my fault we're not friends. I came to these knobs a total stranger, intending to treat everybody right. But when I spoke to you in Hebron, you turned your back on me. Why did you do that? I know why, and in a measure I forgive it. But it was not a manly thing to do. I'm going to talk plainly to you, Buck. I'm glad of this chance to have it out right here in the woods. But before we go any further tell me this—what's that thing?"
I pointed at the plant before me.