“Just what do you mean by that?”
“Nothing to her hurt, God bless her!” was the ready response. “But this is no place to talk. If there was an ounce of courage to go with the ton of hate back in the tavern, we’d both be riddled with bullets before this. Step over to the court-house where we can talk.”
“But, Miss Tonpit? She lives near here? I shall have a chance to see her again?”
And Jackson held back and gazed after the girl, who was now cantering up the trail towards the foot-hills.
“Every opportunity, I should say,” assured Sevier, leading the way into the court-house. “Now suppose you give an account of yourself. I’m sort of a justice of the peace here. We’re hungry for honest men, God knows. I believe you’ll fit in with the court-house crowd rather than with the tavern crowd.”
“But Elsie? Miss Tonpit?”
“Your story first,” Sevier insisted, seating himself at the table and motioning Jackson to a stool fashioned from a solid block of cedar.
Jackson surrendered and rapidly narrated:
“I’m Kirk Jackson, Virginian. I met the Tonpits in Charlotte a little over a year ago and fell in love with Miss Elsie. I must confess my suit didn’t progress as I had hoped. I think her father was opposed. I can’t blame him. Major Tonpit’s daughter can look higher than a forest-ranger. Anyway, I went back to the Ohio country, where I had served under George Rogers Clark. I’m just back from there. Absence had renewed my courage.
“I hurried back to Charlotte and learned the major had moved over the mountains. My informant didn’t know whether he had made his new home in the Watauga district or on the Holston. I saw and recognized her just as that brute in the tavern was preparing to tear my eyes out. Now tell me what you meant by saying she is safe anywhere hereabouts, providing her identity is known.”