Louise did not make any answer whatever to this. Lockwood secured his hat and prepared to go, feeling that he had perhaps said too much. But she gave him her hand at the steps with a charming smile and answered him.
“Certainly I’ll count you as a friend, and we’ll expect you to drop in at any time, whenever you happen to be riding past. The boys will look for you.”
“And you, too?”
“Of course!” she laughed. “Since I’m inviting you.”
CHAPTER VIII
NEW FORCES
Lockwood rode the woods dreamily that next forenoon.
It was going to be impossible to kill Hanna, unless in the heat of sudden self-defense. He wondered at himself, for life had suddenly come to seem once more valuable to him. The old black purpose that had driven him so long was fading away. Not that he had forgiven his enemy; he was as determined as ever to defeat Hanna’s purposes, to see him sure of prison, if possible—not that he had any objection to taking his life, but he was no longer willing to wreck his own life to compass Hanna’s death. He had, in fact, developed an interest keener even than that of hate.
His horse trod almost without sound on the deep carpet of pine needles, and as he came to the bayou he perceived the loom of a great, gray bulk. Coming nearer, he recognized it as the house boat he had seen before, moored now directly across the bayou from him. It had not been there the day before. It must have been brought up early that morning.
A small fire smoldered on the shore by the mooring, with a coffee pot and iron frying pan beside it, but there was no one near the fire. On the little railed deck space at the stern a man sat fishing and smoking. It was the bearded pirate Lockwood had seen before. His bare feet were propped on the deck rail; he tilted back in a rickety chair; he smoked his pipe with his hands in his pockets, and the fishing rod was wedged into a crevice of the deck. His hat was off, and Lockwood could see a great bluish stain or scar covering much of one side of his forehead, which might have been a powder burn from a pistol fired at close range. For some moments the two men stared at one another in silence across the muddy water.
“Ho-owdy!” the riverman drawled at last.