"Gosh!" exclaimed Coonie, expectorating copiously, "that's noos!"
"You bet! Don'll be hoppin' when he hears it. All the fellows has been sayin' they bet Mr. Egerton would have liked to go with Jessie ever since he come here if Don didn't keep him shooed off. Wait till he goes back to college and the minister'll have his turn. Long's he don't go hangin' 'round Maggie, I won't bother him." And Mr. Todd put his head on one side and gazed sentimentally up the hill, a pose which was slightly damaged by old Bella throwing up her head and spattering him with water.
As Donald Neil came cantering homeward, he met the mail driver dropping down the Glenoro hills towards the Flats. "Hello, Coonie!" called the young man, "how's yourself to-day?"
Coonie pulled up his old horse, which stopped with as much difficulty as she started. He was very glad to meet Donald. "Oh, jist chawin' an' spittin'," he answered with suspicious cordiality. "What kind o' a new apostle's this you've got up here?"
"Who? Mr. Egerton? Oh! he's all right," said Donald, giving Bella a poke in the ribs with his whip. "Haven't you seen him?"
Coonie spat disapprovingly. "Yes, you bet. Seen him this mornin' showin' off the soles o' his boots on Peter McNabb's veranda an' readin' novels. Soft snap them preacher fellows have. Nothin' in the world to do but run after the girls. Don't wonder that you're headin' that way yourself; guess Mr. Egerton thinks you're tryin' to get up to him in the religion business, so he'll race you in the sparkin' line. Haw! Haw!"
Donald looked down at him calmly. "Go on," he said quietly, "you've got something on your mind, Coonie, and you'll never be easy till it's off. I saw you were loaded when I was half a mile back; what's the trouble?"
Coonie did not enjoy this; Donald Neil was not the right sort of person to torment. He took that sort of thing too indifferently and one was always left in the tantalising doubt as to whether he cared or not. Coonie did not believe in casting his pearls before swine, so he cracked his long whip with the usual admonitory inquiry, "Gedap there! What're ye doin'?"
Bella gave her preliminary scramble, stopped, tried again and slowly shambled off. But her driver could not resist turning in his teetering seat, as the dust began to rise, to shout back, "If I'd a girl I was as spooney over as you are, I'd keep an eye skinned for chaps as good lookin' as the parson. Haw! Haw!—Gedap!"
Donald rode off with a laugh, but his face became grave as he climbed the hill. A dark suspicion that the minister might some day be his rival had long been forming in his mind. Perhaps jealousy was the cause of his unforgiving spirit. He went to Wee Andra for an explanation of just what Coonie meant and his mind was not eased by it. He had never had a dangerous rival before and he was forced to confess that the minister was certainly a very captivating young man.