Lightning stirred in a chair that left him feeling a queer sense of mental discomfort. He tried to lounge back in it, but sat up again at once. He ignored the cuspidore, and spat beyond the verandah.
“I ain’t pryin’ secrets,” he said, in his harsh way. “I’m jest lookin’ to get Molly back to home. This talk ain’t——”
Jim nodded.
“It’s all to do with her being here,” he said quickly. “We—Sis and I—knew where she came from when we found her down at the water’s edge on Three-Way Creek. There wasn’t a thing to stop us riding back with her the moment we located her. But we didn’t do that, because——” He spread out his hands. “I meant to bring her right along up here, and do my best to help her some way. You see, Lightning, it was the chance I’d been yearning for. She was sick. She was badly hurt. Then there was that cur McFardell, who’d set her crazy for him, and—quit her cold.”
The old man’s jaws worked violently at the mention of McFardell’s name. His eyes snapped. Jim interpreted the signs he beheld unerringly. He inclined his white head.
“Sure, we’ll come back to him in awhile, Lightning,” he said. “Now I just want you to listen. I’m going to hand you a story. I’m going to put myself right into your hands. But it doesn’t worry me a thing. You’ve just one idea in life, and so have I. It’s Molly. We’re both looking to do the same thing from different ends. Well, we’ve got to get on common ground. To do that I want you to know me, and all about me. When you know that I’ll be good and satisfied, if you feel that way and Molly’s yearning to go, for you to take her right back to her farm. Will you hear the story first, boy?”
In a moment the hardness passed out of Lightning’s eyes, giving place to a smile like a sunbeam breaking through the grey cloud of winter. He gripped the arms of his chair.
“A friend to Molly, gal, is sure a friend to me, mister,” he said. “Mebbe that story’s your own, and I’ll sure take it as told. That pore gal’s eyes is full of sadness, an’ her innercent heart’s clear froze over. I’m grievin’ fer her, an’ that’s all. An’ if you’re out to pass her help I can’t never hope to, why, I’m all in it with you.”
But Jim shook his head.
“That’s not my way,” he said. “Sit right back and let me talk.”