“I’m right-smart strange, I reckon,” was the admission. “But I was borned forty-mile south o’ here, on the Yadkin. My father owned the place Daniel Boone lived when he sickened o’ this-hyar kentry, kase it wa’n’t wild ’nough. I’m kin ter Boone’s woman—Bryant strain—raised ’twixt this-hyar creek an’ Air Bellows.”
“Wall, say ye so!” Uncle Dick exclaimed, heartily. “Why, I knowed ye when ye was a boy. You-all’s 146 pap used to buy wool, an’ my pap tuk me with ’im to the Boone place with ’is Spring shearin’. Thet makes we-uns some sort o’ kin. Ye’d better ’light an’ take a leetle breathin’ spell. A drink o’ my ole brandy might cheer ye. An’ ye know,” he concluded, with a quick hardening of his tones, “hit’s customary to know a stranger’s business up in these-hyar mountings.”
The horseman took no offense.
“I rid up to the balcony jest to make inquiry ’bout a friend what I hain’t seed in a right-smart bit, an’ who I learnt was a-livin’ a lonely widder’s life on Guarding Creek. Could you-all direct me to the abode o’ one Widder Brown? I hev some private an’ pussonal business with the widder. Hit’s a kind what don’t consarn nary human critter but me an’ her.”
Uncle Dick sought no further for information, but issued the requested direction, and moodily watched the horseman out of sight. Then, with a sigh that was very like a groan, he moved away toward a small outbuilding, in which was a forge. Here when he had set the forge glowing, he took from his pocket the vial of gold dust, and emptied the contents into a ladle. When the metal was melted, he poured off the dross, and proceeded to hammer the ingot into a broad band. Eventually, he succeeded in forming a massive ring of the virgin 147 gold. But, throughout the prosecution of the task, there was none of that fond elation which had upborne him during the hours while he gathered the material. On the contrary, his shaggy brows were drawn in a frown of disappointment. He cursed below his breath from time to time, with pointed references to one-armed veterans, who dast come back when they hadn’t orter. He was still in a saddened and rebellious mood, when he returned to the porch, where he found his granddaughters seated at some sewing. His face lightened a little at sight of them.
“Guess I got my han’s full ’nough o’ women-folks, anyhow,” he muttered. “Fine gals they be, too!” He regarded them attentively, with a new pride of possession. “I ’low I hain’t a-kickin’ much of any. I reckon like ’nough I be settled down right now, only I didn’t know ’nough to know it.” He chuckled over this conceit, as he seated himself, and became uncommonly sociable, somewhat to the distress of Plutina, who found it difficult to conceal her anxiety.
Dusk was falling when the horseman reappeared. This time there was no hesitation, as he turned from the road into the clearing. Uncle Dick rose, and shouted greeting, with labored facetiousness.
“Wall, Mister Jones, I ’lowed as how ye mout be the tax-collector, arter the widder’s mite, seein’ 148 how long ye was a-hangin’ on up thar. Me an’ the gals’d feel a right-smart consarn to lose Fanny Brown fer a neighbor, if she was pushed too hard fer her debts.”
“Mister Siddon, suh,” the stranger answered promptly. “I opine you-all hain’t half-bad at a guess. I be a tax-collector, so to speak, a debt-collector. Hit’s a debt contracted fifty-year agone. Fanny Brown done tole me as how you-all been good neighbors o’ her’n, so I don’t mind tellin’ ye she’s willin’ fer me to collect thet-thar debt o’ mine.” There was an expression of vast complacency on the veteran’s face, as he stroked the tuft of whisker on his chin, and he smiled on his three auditors half-triumphantly, half-shamefacedly. “I got cheated o’ her oncet by being too slow. I hain’t goin’ to do no sech foolishness ag’in. T’-morrer, if the clerk’s office is open, I’ll git the satisfaction piece an’ Preacher Roberts’ll tie the knot good and proper—amen!”
Uncle Dick sighed audibly at the announcement, but his chagrin was given no further expression as he invited the victorious rival to dismount and partake of his hospitality. Alvira received the news with bubbling delight, which showed gaily in her sparkling black eyes and dimpling cheeks. Even Plutina was heartened by the discovery that her grandfather’s folly, as she deemed it, must end, 149 though there could be no gladness in her by reason of the fear.