Slowly, like a promise made before high heaven, he answered me.
"I will go, but I shall see you there. When we meet again, my hand will have you by the throat. And—I don't care whose son you are."
He slid down the cliff-side like a lizard, and was gone. I turned and stumbled through the bushes full into Lettie Conlow crouching among them.
"Lettie, Lettie," I cried, "go home."
"I won't unless you will come with me," she answered coaxingly.
"I have taken you home once to-night," I said. "Now you may go alone or stay here as you choose," and I left her.
"You'll live to see the day you'll wish you hadn't said that," I heard her mutter threateningly behind me.
A gray mist had crept over the low-hanging moon. The world, so glorious in its softened radiance half an hour ago, was dull and cheerless now. And with a strange heartache and sense of impending evil I sought my home.
The next day was a busy one in the office. My father was deep in the tangle of a legal case and more than usually grave. Early in the afternoon, Cam Gentry had come into the courthouse, and the two had a long conference. Toward evening he called me into his private office.
"Phil, this land case is troubling me. I believe the papers we want are in that old cabin. Could you go out again to-morrow?" He smiled now. "Go and make a careful search of the premises. If there are any boxes, open them. I will give you an order from Sheriff Karr. And Phil, I believe I wouldn't take Marjie this time. I want to have a talk with her to-morrow, anyhow. You can't monopolize all her time. I saw Mrs. Whately just now and made an appointment with her for Marjie."