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Page 60
The colonel emptied the remaining contents of his glass at a single
gulp, and sat up. "It's my opinion, sah, that Raintree had that
night more than his usual allowance of corn-juice on board; and
it's only a wonder, sah, that he didn't see a few pink alligators
and sky-blue snakes at the same time. But what's this got to do
with that wanderin' tramp?"
"They're all the same thing, colonel, and in my opinion that there
tramp ain't no more alive than that figger was."
"But YOU were the one that saw this tramp with your own eyes,"
retorted the colonel quickly, "and you never before allowed it was
a spirit!"
"Exactly! I saw it whar a minit afore nothin' had been standin',
and a minit after nothin' stood," said Larry Hawkins, with a
certain serious emphasis; "but I warn't goin' to say it to ANYBODY,
and I warn't goin' to give you and the hacienda away. And ez
nobody knew Raintree's story, I jest shut up my head. But you kin
bet your life that the man I saw warn't no livin' man!"
"We'll see, sah!" said the colonel, rising from his chair with his
fingers in the armholes of his nankeen waistcoat, "ef he ever
intrudes on my property again. But look yar! don't ye go sayin'
anything of this to Polly,--you know what women are!"
A faint color came into Larry's face; an animation quite different
to the lazy deliberation of his previous monologue shone in his
eyes, as he said, with a certain rough respect he had not shown
before to his companion, "That's why I'm tellin' ye, so that ef SHE
happened to see anything and got skeert, ye'd know how to reason
her out of it."
"'Sh!" said the colonel, with a warning gesture.
A young girl had just appeared in the doorway, and now stood
leaning against the central pillar that supported it, with one hand
above her head, in a lazy attitude strongly suggestive of the
colonel's Southern indolence, yet with a grace entirely her own.
Indeed, it overcame the negligence of her creased and faded yellow
cotton frock and unbuttoned collar, and suggested--at least to the
eyes of ONE man--the curving and clinging of the jasmine vine
against the outer column of the veranda. Larry Hawkins rose
awkwardly to his feet.
"Now what are you two men mumblin' and confidin' to each other?
You look for all the world like two old women gossips," she said,
with languid impertinence.
It was easy to see that a privileged and recognized autocrat spoke.
No one had ever questioned Polly Swinger's right to interrupting,
interfering, and saucy criticisms. Secure in the hopeless or
chivalrous admiration of the men around her, she had repaid it with
a frankness that scorned any coquetry; with an indifference to the
ordinary feminine effect or provocation in dress or bearing that
was as natural as it was invincible. No one had ever known Polly
to "fix up" for anybody, yet no one ever doubted the effect, if she
had. No one had ever rebuked her charming petulance, or wished to.
Larry gave a weak, vague laugh. Colonel Swinger as ineffectively
assumed a mock parental severity. "When you see two gentlemen,
miss, discussin' politics together, it ain't behavin' like a lady
to interrupt. Better run away and tidy yourself before the stage
comes."
The young lady replied to the last innuendo by taking two spirals
of soft hair, like "corn silk," from her oval cheek, wetting them
with her lips, and tucking them behind her ears. Her father's
ungentlemanly suggestion being thus disposed of, she returned to
her first charge.
"It ain't no politics; you ain't been swearing enough for THAT!
Come, now! It's the mysterious stranger ye've been talking about!"
Both men stared at her with unaffected concern.
"What do YOU know about any mysterious stranger?" demanded her
father.
"Do you suppose you men kin keep a secret," scoffed Polly. "Why,
Dick Ruggles told me how skeert ye all were over an entire
stranger, and he advised me not to wander down the road after dark.
I asked him if he thought I was a pickaninny to be frightened by
bogies, and that if he hadn't a better excuse for wantin' 'to see
me home' from the Injin spring, he might slide."
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