“It looks like Purvynes,” Hoag mused. “I wonder what on earth the fellow wants. This certainly ain't in his regular beat.”
Hoag put down his mug and brush, listened to see if Jack and his grandmother in the adjoining room were awake, then, hearing no sound in that part of the house, he cautiously tiptoed out into the corridor, opened the front door, and crossed the veranda to the lawn. He now saw that the man was indeed Purvynes.
“Some new trouble may be brewin',” Hoag surmised, “or he wouldn't be out as early as this.” Purvynes saw him approaching and moved along the fence to the gate, where he stood waiting, a stare of subdued excitement blended with other emotions in his dim gray eyes. His hair was tousled, his grizzled head untrimmed, and there were shadows, lines, and angles in his sallow visage.
“Early for you to be so far from home, ain't it?” was Hoag's introductory question.
“I reckon it is, Cap,” the man answered, sheepishly, his lips quivering. “I didn't know whether you was here or off in Atlanta, but—but I thought I'd walk over an' see. I've been awake for an hour or more—in fact, I hardly closed my eyes last night. My women folks are nigh distracted, Cap. I was here yesterday, but Cato said you was over at your new mill. I'd 'a' come after supper, if my women folks hadn't been afraid to be left alone in the dark.”
“Huh! I see.”
There was an ominous pause. It was as if Hoag dreaded further revelations. He felt sure that something decidedly unpleasant lay beneath the man's perturbed exterior. For once in his life Hoag failed to show irritation, and his next question was put almost in the tone of entreaty.
“What's got into you an' them all of a sudden?” he faltered.
“You may well ask it,” Purvynes said with a voluminous sigh. “A fellow may try to put on a brave front, an' act unconcerned when trouble's in the wind, but if he's got a gang o' crazy women an' children hangin' on to his shirt-tail he is in a fix.”
“Well, what is it—what is it?” Hoag demanded, with staccato asperity born of his growing anxiety.