Mavis smiled silently to herself; he had found out thus where she was and he had followed her. At the little stable Jason unsaddled the horses and turned both out in the yard while Mavis went within, and Steve Hawn appeared at the door in his underclothes when Jason stepped upon the porch.
"Hello, Jason!"
"Hello, Steve!" answered the boy, but they did not shake hands, not because of the hard feeling between them, but because it was not mountain custom.
"Come on in an' lay down."
Mavis had gone upstairs, but she could hear the voices below her. If Mavis had been hesitant about asking questions, as had been the boy's mother as well, Steve was not. "Whut'd you come up here fer?"
"Same reason as you once left the mountains—I got inter trouble."
Steve was startled and he frowned, but the boy gazed coolly back into his angry eyes.
"Whut kind o' trouble?"
"Same as you—I shot a feller," said the boy imperturbably.
Little Mavis heard a groan from her step-mother, an angry oath from her father, and a curious pang of horror pierced her.