"Go in now, Susan, and don't come foolin' with me. Who said I was shot? Go on to bed, everybody, and I'll come when I git ready."
"But you must be hungry, Limuel?"
"Hungry, the devil—excuse me, ma'm. I'll eat a snack mebby between now and mornin'."
"It's no use to talk to him," she said, with a sigh, and, turning to me, she added: "You and Alf must be nearly starved. We've kept the coffee warm. Guinea, go and pour it out for 'em."
"Will you tell me all about the fight?" the girl asked when we entered the dining-room. "I like to hear about such things."
I strove to make light of it, but, seeing that this would not satisfy her, I told of the burning of the house and of the capture of the Aimes brothers, colored our danger in the house, to see her lips whiten and her eyes stare; pictured myself as I must have looked when I seized the dog, to choke him, and to throw him far into the woods—told her all, except that I had caught the hammers of Alf's gun.
"I don't see how you kept from killing them when you got the chance," she said, leaning with her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands, musing: "I don't understand how you could keep from it."
Alf threw down his knife and fork and struck the table with his fist. "I wanted to kill Scott—had a bead on him, but Bill grabbed my gun. Guinea, I'm glad you stand by me, you and father; but the General thinks I was wrong, and I was just about to think that everybody's heart was right but mine. I am glad you are with me, Guinea."
I looked at her as she sat there, musing; her hair was tangled as if a storm of thought had swept through her head, and sorely I wondered whether a care for me had been borne through the storm. I forgot the presence of Alf; I forgot everything except that I would have given my blood and my soul to please her, and with bitterness I said: "Oh, if I had known that you wanted him killed I would not only have let Alf kill him—I would have killed him myself."
She looked up from her attitude of musing and met my outbreak with a quiet laugh. "The bigger a man is the sillier he is," she said, still laughing. "Why, I don't want him dead. I wouldn't like to have anyone killed. I merely wondered how, having come so close to being burned up, you could keep from killing him. I thought that I understood most men, but I don't understand you, Mr. Hawes."