"Oh! I beg your pardon." Miss Lowe flushed and gave a nervous laugh. "You see I just must manage to find a home here, and—and I've heard so much of Southern chivalry and hospitality I rather hoped some one would take me in until I could look around. The place at The Forge, where I've been for two nights is—impossible, and the darkies have their hands stretched out for tips until I feel like a palmist, and a bankrupt one at that!"
A merry laugh rang out and in spite of himself and his grave doubts Greeley relaxed.
"If you don't mind doing for yourself," he ventured, "there's a cabin over to Trouble Neck that you might get."
"Do for myself?" Miss Lowe cried energetically. "I'd just favour that plan, I can tell you! I could get all the furniture I need at The Forge, I am sure. The name of the place isn't exactly cheering, but then I've waded through trouble and got on top all my life long. Who owns the cabin over at Trouble Neck?"
Property rights in and around The Hollow were rarely discussed; it was a delicate question, but what was not actually held down by another generally was conceded to a certain Smith Crothers and to his credit Tod Greeley now put the Trouble Neck cabin.
"Oh! He's the man who owns the factory a few miles from The Forge? I drove past it yesterday at noon time. I thought it was an orphan asylum at first. I never saw such babies put to work before. It's monstrous and the law ought to shut down on your Smith Crothers!"
At this Greeley had a distinct sensation of pain in the region known as the pit of his stomach. That Smith Crothers should fall under any law had never been dreamed of by mortal man or woman in Greeley's presence before. The right of free whiskey was one thing; the right of a man to utilize the children of the district was another!
"He ain't my Smith Crothers!" Greeley inanely returned, feeling in a dazed way that he did not want to put in any claim for Crothers with those apparently innocent eyes upon him.
"Well, I'll try to buy the Trouble Neck place from Smith Crothers at once. You see I've been very sick; they said I'd lost my health, but I know I've only misplaced it."
Again the cheerful laugh set Greeley's nerves tingling.