"'Cause I can't! I has somethin' to do."
"Can't you do it after you return? Your father will be so disappointed if you do not go to him when you have promised."
He was gazing at her keenly. Her eyes dropped upon her folded hands in her lap.
"I knows that," she breathed, "but I can't go, just the same."
Young did not persist in the argument.
"It is almost a certainty that your father will get another trial," he went on presently. "I shall act as his lawyer, and, little girl, when the snow flies again, your father will be home in the cabin with you."
She flashed him a radiant smile through the tears which still clung to her lashes. He loved to watch the color coming and going swiftly, and the glints thrown into her eyes by the sun.
"It air the student's God what will bring him." She bent eagerly toward him, with a quick motion. "Be ye one of the prayin' kind what tells God all ye needs? Daddy would have been a-hung by the neck till he was dead, only the student telled me how to pray and he air a-prayin', too."
She finished the sentence in a low tone. Young leaned back in his chair, grasping at the arms to hide his emotion. The girl was so close to him that he could feel her warm, swift-coming breath upon his face. How long would he have to suffer over this primitive child? But he loved her, and the only course left him was to snatch her from young Graves while there was opportunity to see her now and then. Her brown eyes were piercing his very soul. The childish excitement upon the upturned face almost tempted him to force her into his arms, to awaken the soul beneath the soiled jacket, to make the girl into a woman in spite of her environment.