She hesitated, clasping and unclasping her hands. Then she looked at him frankly.
“He was a nightmare to me. He persecuted me—followed me. That was partly why I left and came here—to get away from him.”
“Ah!” said Lockwood, with a long breath between his teeth. “And he followed you here?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so. He came up on the boat and stopped a day or two at Ferrell’s. He was supposed to be looking for a chance to buy timberlands. Tom brought him home to dinner, and asked him to stop with us. I was terrified when I saw him. I nearly told papa what I knew of him—but then the boys would probably have shot him, and so I didn’t know what to do, and said nothing.
“But Hanna behaved well. The first chance he got, he apologized to me very nicely for all the past; he said he was afraid he had been a nuisance, but that he wouldn’t trouble me any more. And I must say he didn’t—not till——”
“That day on the bayou?” asked Lockwood.
“Yes. You saw it. I had to put him ashore. He was trying to be persuasive. But I’m not a bit afraid of him, in that way. I can take care of myself, and he knows it. But you know what he’s been doing to the boys. He began to teach them to mix new drinks from the first, and he gave Tom a tip on the cotton market that cleared eight hundred dollars, and after that they were willing to let him have the handling of everything we had. Now this oil stock business has come up.”
“It’s Hanna’s big coup,” said Lockwood. “He’s decided to stop gathering chicken-feed and make some real money.”
“But what can we do?” cried Louise hopelessly. Lockwood took a sudden resolution.
“Listen, Miss Louise!” he said. “I didn’t intend to tell you now, but Hanna is no stranger to me, either; and I didn’t come to Rainbow Landing by chance, any more than he did. Hanna is a high-class swindler, a mere confidence man. I ought to know. He got my confidence and robbed me of everything I had in the world.”