What he had said in the sincerity of his spiritual belief fell on fertile soil in the mind of his listener. He had preached a sermon to her that was good for her to hear.
Jerry looked out in the direction he had indicated and saw York Macpherson, walking a bit briskly for him and the place and the afternoon.
It was no wonder that Jerusha Darby should expect York to be caught by the charms of his guest. As she sat there in the shade of the cottonwoods, where, in all the cemetery, the blue grass grew rankest, with her pale-green gown, her smooth pink cheeks, and the wavy masses of golden-brown hair coiled low at the back of her head, York wondered if the spirit of the wild rose in bloom and the spirit of some Greek nymph had not combined in the personification before him.
At the gateway he met Ponk.
"Why do you run away? I have a special-delivery letter for Miss Swaim. I thought I'd better come and find her, but that needn't interfere with you."
"Oh, you smooth-bore! But I have to go, anyhow. I'm headin' off what's trailin' you. Don't look back. It's Stellar Bahrr, comin' out to see who's been to see their folks to-day and who's neglectin' 'em, 'specially late arrivals. She's seen my game, though, now, an' she's shabbin' off to the side gate, knowin' I'd head her back to town. Say, York, she's after Miss Swaim now. You watch out. Them that's the worthlessest and has the least influence in a community can start the biggest fires burnin'. Everybody in New Eden's been buffaloed by her—just scared blue—except maybe us two. You ain't, I know, and I'm right sure I ain't."
"Ponk, you are as good as you are good-looking," York said, heartily. "The Big Dipper could start a tale of our guest meeting gentlemen friends in the cemetery. And yet for privacy it's about like meeting them on the sidewalk before the Commercial Hotel. However, she's started scandal with less material. I have business with Miss Swaim, so I'll walk home with her."
Jerry waited for her host under the flickering, murmuring leaves of the cottonwood. She had seen some woman wandering diagonally from the cemetery road toward the corner of the inclosure, but she had no interest in strangers and might never have thought of her again but for a word of York's that day.
He had seen the girl looking after Stellar as she made a wide flank movement. A sense of duty coupled with a strange interest in Jerry, for which he had as yet given no account to himself, was urging him to tell her, as he had told his sister, to have no traffic with the town's greatest liability, but with all of Ponk's warning he could not bring himself to speak now.
"May I sit here with you awhile?" he asked, lifting his hat as he spoke.