“I’m going to marry her,” Houck insisted harshly.
“When a girl loses her mother she’s sure lost her best friend. It’s up to her paw to see she gets a square deal.” There was a quaver of emotion in Tolliver’s voice. “I don’t reckon he can make up to her—”
A sound came from Houck’s throat like a snarl. “Are you tryin’ to tell me that Pete Tolliver’s girl is too good for me? Is that where you’re driftin’?”
“Now don’t you get mad, Jake,” the older man pleaded. “These here are different times. I don’t want my June mixed up with—with them Brown’s Park days an’ all.”
“You’re twistin’ my words, Jake,” the father went on, an anxious desire to propitiate frowning out of the wrinkled face. “I ain’t sayin’ a word against you. I’m explainin’ howcome I to feel like I do. Since I—bumped into that accident in the Park—”
Houck’s ill-natured laugh cut the sentence. It was a jangled dissonance without mirth. “What accident?” he jeered.
“Why—when I got into the trouble—”
“You mean when Jas Stuart caught you rustlin’ an’ you murdered him an’ went to the pen. That what you mean?” he demanded loudly.
Tolliver caught his sleeve. “S-sh! She don’t know a thing about it. You recollect I told you that.”