“Then don’t disturb him now. I’ll see him later in the day.” Hardaker turned and walked a few steps, as if going away, his head bent and his eyebrows wrinkled, then hesitated and came slowly back. “Miss Rhoda—is she around anywhere?”
Jim came close and in low tones told briefly the happening of the night before. “Miss Rhoda, she hain’t got back yet and I’se begun to feel anxious about her.”
“She probably waited at Gilbertson’s until morning, and then stopped for breakfast. I dare say she’s all right, but if you’ll saddle up Prince for me I’ll ride out that way and make sure.”
Trotting along on the road toward Gilbertson’s Horace Hardaker seemed to be uneasy of mind. His brows were wrinkled, his lips pressed together, and every now and then he made an impatient exclamation. He was a young man, still under thirty, but he had already acquired a good law practice and was becoming noted throughout his own and adjoining countries for his success in jury trials. His sandy complexion, bright blue eyes and the round, boyish contour of his cheeks made him look even younger than he was. Countenance and expression both indicated the emotional temperament that was at the bottom of his success in jury pleading. It rarely needed more than three sentences of an address to the twelve peers in the box to sweep him into the full tide of ardent conviction of the merits of his case. Whatever may have been his secret thought about his client before, Hardaker always believed in him enthusiastically by the time he had been talking five minutes. Moreover, he was able, with remarkable frequency, to make the jurymen believe in him too.
Just now he was asking himself, “Shall I tell her about it?” and the perturbation which the problem caused him was evident in his countenance. An uneasy shifting in his saddle and a shake of his head showed that the telling, whatever it might be, would be an ordeal from which he shrank.
“But I’d as soon tell her as the doctor,” his thoughts went doubtfully on, “and I don’t know but it would do more good. Hang me if I don’t need advice from somewhere inside the family!” Another irritated exclamation broke from his lips. But the impatience and anxiety of his manner abated somewhat as he went on considering whether or not he should confide his trouble to the absent Rhoda.
“She’s got so much good sense,” he told himself, “and she understands about things better than most girls do, and there’s no nonsense about her. She knows how to be a good friend too—I reckon she and the doctor are the best friends I’ve got, even if she won’t marry me—and that makes it all the worse!” he exclaimed, looking as if there were a bad taste in his mouth.
As he crossed the top of one hill he saw Rhoda driving down the long slope of the next. With a flourish of her carriage whip she responded to his hat-waving salute.
“Let me hitch Prince on behind and get in and drive you back,” he said, as they met at the bottom of the hill. “So you had some U. G. baggage to deliver last night?” he continued, as he jumped in and took the lines from her hands.
She flashed a smile at him. “Yes, a trunk and two handbags. And oh, Horace, they were the wife and children of the man to whom Mr. Delavan gave his freedom last June! I do hope they’ll get to him safely!”