"If you want these logs, you must ask for them. Shall I tell the Colonel you are coming to do so?"
"Well, sonny," drawled Devine, "you just run along home and send somebody grown-up. We might talk to him."
"As it happens," the boy said with great dignity, "Kenwyne is in the bluff. I must warn you not to touch a tree until you see him."
Without another word he turned and rode off.
During the conversation Harding had been studying him closely. The well-bred reserve in his manner, which, while peremptory, was somehow free from arrogance, compelled the man's admiration.
"From the Old Country," he said with a laugh, "and a bit high-handed, but there's sand in him. Do you know anything about Allenwood?"
"Not much, but I heard the boys talking about it at the railroad store. It's a settlement of high-toned Britishers with more money than sense. They play at farming and ride round the country on pedigree horses."
"The horse the boy rode was certainly a looker!" Harding commented, swinging his ax once more.
As it sliced out a chip with a ringing thud, and another, and yet another, the boy returned, accompanied by a well-mounted older man with a sallow face and very dark eyes and a languidly graceful air. The man was plainly dressed but he wore the stamp Harding had noticed on the youngster; and again there flashed through Harding's mind the half-indistinct thought that these people were familiar to him.
"I understand that you insist upon cutting this timber," Kenwyne began.