“But Crawley has a pretty hard reputation—excuse me for saying it, Sallie—he’s an awful rough man, at best. Are you happy with him?”
She hesitated before replying to this. Amos could see a shadow cross her thin face; but evidently pride must have come to the rescue, for presently she tossed her yellow mane back and said:
“Why, I s’pose so—least ways as happy as I ought to expect. There is just heaps of trouble in this world, anyhow, whichever way you take it, and everybody must just grin and bear it. Dad is good to me—sometimes. Then he’s ugly too; but that’s only when he’s been having too much whiskey. That’s an awful thing to change a man. I hope you don’t drink it, boy.”
“Not a drop for me, as long as I live,” declared Amos. “But see here, Sallie, it ain’t fair for me to know your name, and you to just call me ‘boy’. I’m Amos Simmons, and I’ve been in the lumber camps of Northern Michigan, cookin’, and doing all what-not, for just years. Now, I’ve got a couple of mighty fine chums not far away, one of them named Teddy Overton, and the other Dolph Bradley.”
She uttered a little exclamation.
“I’ve met Teddy Overton once; he’s a splendid boy,” she said, hastily.
“Well, I guess that’s just right,” remarked Amos. “Now, you see the other, Dolph, he’s from Cincinnati. Everybody knows that his father’s rich. Why, they’ve got oodles of money. I kind o’ think your dad and Gabe, there, know it; and right now they’re a hatching some measly plan expectin’ to separate Dolph’s folks from a lot of that spare cash. And that’s the reason they pulled me in like they did.”
He kept one eye on the men while saying this.
The girl looked surprised.
“Oh! then it ain’t you they’re meaning to hold up?” she asked.