nk you ought to go right
to Mr. Stoddard and tell him that John is your promised wife, and show
him the folly and--and the wickedness of his course--or what would be
wickedness if he persisted in it? Don't you think you ought to do that?"

Shade held down his head and appeared to be giving this matter some
consideration. The weak point of such an argument lay in the fact that
Johnnie was not his promised wife, and Gray Stoddard was very likely to
know it. Indeed, Lydia Sessions herself only believed the statement
because she so wished.

"I reckon I ort," he said finally. "If I could ever get a chance of
private speech with him, mebbe I'd--"

There came a sound of light hoofs down the road, and Stoddard on Roan
Sultan, riding bareheaded, came toward them under the trees.

Miss Sessions clutched the gate and stood staring. Buckheath drew a
little closer, set his shoulder against the fence and tried to look
unconcerned. The rising sun behind the mountains threw long slant rays
across into the bare tree tops, so that the shimmer of it dappled horse
and man. Gray's face was pale, his brow looked anxious; but he rode head
up and alert, and glanced with surprise at the two at the Sessions gate.
He had no hat to raise, but he saluted Lydia Sessions with a sweeping
gesture of the hand and passed on. A blithe, gallant figure cantering
along the suburban road, out toward the Gap, and the mountains beyond,
Gray Stoddard rode into the dip of the ridge and--so far as Cottonville
was concerned--vanished utterly.

Buckheath drew a long breath and straightened up.

"I'm but a poor man," he began truculently, "yit there ain't nobody can
marry the gal I set out to wed and me stand by and say nothing."

"Oh, Mr. Buckheath!" cried Miss Lydia. "Mr. Stoddard had no idea of
_marrying_ John--a mill girl! There is no possibility of any such thing
as that. I want you to understand that there isn't--to feel assured,
once for all. I have reason to know, and I urge you to put that out of
your mind."

Shade looked at her narrowly. Up to the time Pap gave him definite
information from headquarters, he had never for an instant supposed that
there was a possibility of Stoddard desiring to marry Johnnie; but the
flurried eagerness of Miss Sessions convinced him that such a
possibility was a very present dread with her, and he sent a venomous
glance after the disappearing horseman.

"You go and talk to him right now, Mr. Buckheath," insisted Lyd