SALLIE
Amos was taken aback when he saw the girl standing there in the doorway of the old cabin in the pine woods.
He had supposed that when he set that greasy old ruffian, Crawley, down as a vagabond, without a single good quality in his make-up, he was only doing him justice and to discover that he actually had a decent trait in his miserable character, was quite enough to shake Amos’s faith in his own ability to read men.
This was when he saw Crawley actually bend down and kiss the girl. It made Amos shudder, too, somehow, when he thought of those tobacco stained lips coming in contact with the red ones of the frail girl.
At any rate, Amos thought, if this were his child, she surely could not have any of Crawley’s nature in her; for he looked the drinking scoundrel the boy knew him to be, while somehow Amos thought of angels he had seen in dreams when he saw her yellow hair and big blue eyes.
So this was Sallie! She seemed somewhat surprised to see a boy with the two men and turned those big eyes reproachfully upon Crawley, which action somehow caused him to squirm uneasily, and say hastily:
“Oh! we ain’t a-goin’ to kill the little fool, Sallie. All we wants is ter keep him close here a few days, so he can’t meddle in other people’s bizness. Ye see, it ain’t safe for greenies ter be aroamin’ the woods, when fellers is ahuntin’. They don’t know how ter handle highfalutin’ guns, an’ are apt to do damage ter pore hard workin’ root gatherers like Gabe ’n me. Set that meat down in a corner, ye gump, an’ don’t stant thar astarin’ at my Gal. Sallie, sense ye got sech a fine fire, I reckon we might’s well cut off some o’ this fresh mutton, and make a meal o’ it. Gabe, spose ye keep one eye on our new friend hyar, an’ if he tries ter vamose, wing him.”
The girl said nothing, but she evidently understood that these two evil men had some wicked game in prospect. Amos saw her shoot a pitying glance toward him, and somehow he was not sorry that he had been brought to that cabin.
Of course, the presence of that splendid repeating rifle made her think the young owner must be well to do, and she knew from experience that such people always had a certain stamp of value in the eyes of her unscrupulous parent, who was forever trying to collect the living he said the world owed him.