This Merimée, guide, was mostly a man of few words. Yet when, as now, his toil for the day was over and the campers gathered for an evening chat it flattered his vanity to be asked for the legends and traditions of the countryside. His tongue had been loosened and he used it thus liberally for the benefit of Anton, the mischievous, who “shamed his duty” as old Merimée always honored it. As he finished speaking he walked to the tree where the gray mare was fastened, slipped on its saddle, tightened its girth, and called:
“Ready, Anton!”
And, as if in echo, again floated through the air overhead a night-bird’s mournful cry and Anton shrieked, then sprang to his feet shivering with terror.
The men stared at him, astonished, and Monty ran to him, shook him, and demanded:
“Don’t you know better than that? Scare a fellow’s wits out of his head? That’s nothing but the same old bird that’s kept me awake—”
Melvin shouted in laughter, and the others echoed him.
“Kept you awake! Well, I’d like to know when? You that always go to sleep over your supper—if you’re allowed!”
Monty laughed, also, and the mirth around him seemed to restore Anton’s composure in a measure. But happening to glance toward Judge Breckenridge he saw that gentleman looking at him keenly and his guilty conscience awoke. In fact, the Judge was merely interested in watching the changes which fear wrought upon Anton’s healthy face and was growing impatient to have the lad start home. He knew how eagerly his sister would wait to read the letters he was returning her and to comply with his own brief instructions concerning them. He was a man who wished always to do at once anything he had to do; and nothing annoyed him more than others’ shilly-shallying. To his amazement, Anton begged him:
“Don’t! Don’t, sir, look at me like that! I didn’t go for to do it! She—she done it herself!”
“Who did what? Have you lost your common sense?”