At once her mind was filled with all manner of wild speculations. Had Marion, in her absence, thought of some new hiding place in that attic? Had she found the Confederate gold? Or had Uncle Billie talked too much about the vanished gold? Had some one, with no legal right to the gold, come to the house while everyone was away? Had he climbed to the attic and plundered it?
She found herself all but overcome by a desire to climb up there and look for herself.
“But this day,” she said, sitting up wide awake, “this day I have no time for treasure hunting. My business to-day is that of being tried by a jury. And after that,”—her thoughts were bitter,—“after that it is to be my duty to show these mountain folks how gamely a girl from the outside can lose an election.”
Strangely enough, at this moment there passed through her mind moving pictures of her experience at the back of Pine Mountain.
“The deed for Caleb Powell’s land,” she whispered. “I wonder when they will have it? Will they have it at all? Will we get our commission?”
“Oh well,” she exclaimed, leaping out of bed, “there’s no time for such speculation now.”
The trial was on. The house was packed. Lacking a town hall, the Justice had selected the schoolhouse for court room.
To Florence the thing was tragic. To be tried by a jury, a jury of men who two months before were utterly unknown to her; to be tried by a people whose children she had been helping to educate, this was tragic indeed. There were faces in the audience which seemed to reflect the tragedy; seamed faces, old before their time; faces of women who had toiled beyond their just lot that their children might have just a little more than they had enjoyed.
There was humor in the situation, too. To be sitting there in the very chair which she had been accustomed to use in her school-work; to be looking into the faces of scores of children, yet instead of directing their work to be listening to the Justice stumbling over the words of the warrant, all this struck her as decidedly odd, a thing to smile about.
Ransom, too, must have seen the humor of it, for as Florence looked his way she surprised a smile lurking around the corners of his mouth.