He told them more about Siebert and Andy McCann as they went away from the claim. Betty listened as before with quiet interest, but she made no comment. Hurley was not at all sure that she had enjoyed, or even approved of their visit to the mine when she and Hunt parted from him at his own shack, although she thanked him politely.
The walk did not end for Hunt and his sister without a more adventurous incident. The sun had disappeared and the dusk had begun to thicken in corners and by-streets as they approached the hotel. There, at the mouth of a narrow lane, two figures stood, a man and a girl, and their voices were sharp and angry.
“That’s what I’m telling you,” the man’s voice drawled, a note in it that at once raised in Hunt that feeling that any decent man experiences who hears one of his own sex so address a woman. “You got to come to it, and you might as well come now as later. I got you on the hip—that I have. Understand?”
“I understand nothing of the kind, Tolley. You’re a bluffer and a beast! And if you don’t let me alone——”
“Don’t fool yourself,” interrupted the man. “I won’t let you alone till you come back to the Grub Stake. But I won’t talk to you about it again. I’ll talk to others.”
Then the girl told him angrily to do his worst. Betty attempted to pass on swiftly; but the young man hesitated.
“Do for goodness’ sake come along, Ford!” whispered his sister, looking back at him.
Back in Ditson Corners—or in almost any other Eastern town—the Reverend Willett Ford Hunt would scarcely have shown his interest in such a scene on the street, save perhaps to speak to a constable or policeman about it.
But there was something here he could not ignore. Nor was it entirely because he recognized the angry voice of the girl, although he had not as yet seen her face in the dusk.
“You’ll do what I tell you,” muttered the bully with an oath, as Hunt stepped nearer. “If you don’t come back to the Grub Stake to sing to-morrow night, I’ll let the whole o’ Canyon Pass know——”