une did not cry that night. She sat by the window--wretched and
tearless. She had taken sides with "furriners" against her own people.
That was why, instinctively, she had put on her old homespun with a
vague purpose of reparation to them. She knew the story Dave would take
back home--the bitter anger that his people and hers would feel at
the outrage done him--anger against the town, the Guard, against Hale
because he was a part of both and even against her. Dave was merely
drunk, he had simply shot off his pistol--that was no harm in the
hills. And yet everybody had dashed toward him as though he had stolen
something--even Hale. Yes, even that boy with the cap who had stood up
for her at school that afternoon--he had rushed up, his face aflame with
excitement, eager to take part should Dave resist. She had cried out
impulsively to save Hale, but Dave would not understand. No, in his eyes
she had been false to family and friends--to the clan--she had sided
with "furriners." What would her father say? Perhaps she'd better go
home next day--perhaps for good--for there was a deep unrest within her
that she could not fathom, a premonition that she was at the parting of
the ways, a vague fear of the shadows that hung about the strange new
path on which her feet were set. The old mill creaked in the moonlight
below her. Sometimes, when the wind blew up Lonesome Cove, she could
hear Uncle Billy's wheel creaking just that way. A sudden pang of
homesickness choked her, but she did not cry. Yes, she would go home
next day. She blew out the light and undressed in the dark as she did
at home and went to bed. And that night the little night-gown lay apart
from her in the drawer--unfolded and untouched.

XIV

But June did not go home. Hale anticipated that resolution of hers and
forestalled it by being on hand for breakfast and taking June over to
the porch of his little office. There he tried to explain to her that
they were trying to build a town and must have law and order; that they
must have no personal feeling for or against anybody and must treat
everybody exactly alike--no other course was fair--and though June could
not quite understand, she trusted him and she said she would keep on at
school until her father came for her.

"Do you think he will come, June?"

The little girl hesitated.

"I'm afeerd he will," she said, and Hale smiled.

"Well, I'll try to persuade him to let you stay, if he does come."

June