"Because," Daisy, this picture out of the past in her mind, answered Jim Burns unconsciously, by what was really a sentence thought aloud, "I wanted to show some people where they got off at."
Jim Burns' legs went numb at the vigor with which she said this. His hands opened loosely, and his pitchfork slid out of them.
"Well," he gulped, presently, "you needn't have went and did a trick like that. Why couldn't you have given me a hint, Daise?"
At this, Daisy came out of her reverie and stared.
"Given you a hint?" she repeated, "wha—o-oh I see. Well, that's what you get by being slow, Mr. Man. See!"
She caught Rover's tail, and raced away with him over the big drift that ran up to the top of the snow-flattened haystack. Jim Burns took off his hat and rubbed the back of his head till it tingled.
"Can't make head or tail of that'n," he said finally, replacing the weathered "dogskin" cap; "But I might ast him. Say—I will ast him! I b'en a kind of a brother to the girl, and I got a right to know, ain't I?"
The chance to ask Ware, who had gone for a stroll about the farm with Nixon, did not present itself till toward evening. Then Burns, returning with the horse from the trough, met Sir William, thoughtfully inspecting the architecture of an old log wing of the stable.
"Clever work, that dovetailing, Burns," Ware said casually; then, as he noted that Jim Burns had halted and fixed him with a glance conveying what seemed to be determination, the baronet, said, briskly,