skirt aside with a jerk, and continued her way straight to Jackson
Wells, where she halted.
"We did not know you were--here alone," he said apologetically.
"Thought I was afraid to come alone, didn't you? Well, you see, I'm not.
There!" She made another dive at her hat and hair, and brought the hat
down wickedly over her eyebrows. "Gimme my plants."
Jackson had been astonished. He would have scarcely recognized in this
willful beauty the red-haired girl whom he had boyishly hated, and with
whom he had often quarreled. But there was a recollection--and with that
recollection came an instinct of habit. He looked her squarely in the
face, and, to the horror of his partners, said, "Say please!"
They had expected to see him fall, smitten with the hairpin! But she
only stopped, and then in bitter irony said, "Please, Mr. Jackson
Wells."
"I haven't dug them up yet--and it would serve you just right if I
made you get them for yourself. But perhaps my friends here might help
you--if you were civil."
The three partners seized spades and hoes and rushed forward eagerly.
"Only show us what you want," they said in one voice. The young girl
stared at them, and at Jackson. Then with swift determination she turned
her back scornfully upon him, and with a dazzling smile which reduced
the three men to absolute idiocy, said to the others, "I'll show YOU,"
and marched away to the cabin.
"Ye mustn't mind Jacksey," said Rice, sycophantically edging to her
side, "he's so cut up with losin' your father that he loved like a son,
he isn't himself, and don't seem to know whether to ante up or pass out.
And as for yourself, Miss--why--What was it he was sayin' only just as
the young lady came?" he added, turning abruptly to Wyngate.
"Everything that cousin Josey planted with her own hands must be took up
carefully and sent back--even though it's killin' me to part with it,"
quoted Wyngate unblushingly, as he slouched along on the other side.
Miss Wells's eyes glared at them, though her mouth still smiled
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