CHAPTER XXVIII

The next day, in the afternoon, Charles and the boys were in the blacksmith's shop repairing a plow that was to be used immediately. Kenneth was at the bellows, and Charles at the anvil, his sleeves rolled high on his brawny arms. Martin stood in the doorway. Presently he whistled softly, and ran to Charles just as he was about to strike the red-hot plowshare which he was holding on the anvil.

"Don't make any noise!" he said. "I see a buggy and horse stopping at the gate. It looks like the sheriff's rig, and I think he is in it."

Charles dropped his tools, and he and his companions crept to a crack in the wall and peered through it.

"That's who it is," Kenneth informed Charles, in a startled voice. "I wonder if—if Tobe has become worse, or—or—"

"I couldn't stand that," Martin cried out. "Oh, don't think it!"

Charles said nothing, and there was no response from Kenneth, who was grimly peering through the crack. They saw Rowland, bareheaded, walking leisurely from the veranda to the gate. They saw him shaking hands over the buggy-wheels with the sheriff. They could not, at that distance, read his face. Of what was taking place the three watchers could form no idea. Presently they saw Mary come down the walk, pass through the gate, and shake hands with the sheriff.

"Sister means to find out if anything has gone wrong, so she can warn us," Kenneth said. "Brown, this looks pretty tough on us. We were thinking everything was all right, but this looks bad."

Still Charles said nothing. His face, only half illumined by the light through the crack, which struck across his fixed eyes, was grim and perplexed.

They saw Mary at her father's side, but the hood of her sunbonnet hid her face from view. The three stood talking for several minutes; then Mary was seen leaving and turning in their direction.

"She's coming to tell us," Kenneth said. "Now, we'll know. Keep still. Maybe she is afraid we'll be seen or heard at work."

Mary appeared in the doorway. She removed her bonnet and smiled reassuringly. "Frightened out of your skins, I'll bet," she jested. "I came to tell you. He is not looking for you. He said so plainly, for he saw how worried I was. In fact, he said that Tobe was still improving, and hinted—he didn't say so in so many words—but he hinted that he knew you both were about the place, and that he was not going to molest you now that Tobe is out of danger."

Charles was staring at her fixedly; the animation that should have been in his face was absent. "Then he wanted to see your father about something else?" he said.

"Yes, some business, or—" Mary broke off, and with a sudden shadow across her face she stood staring at him. "I don't know what he wanted to see father about. It seemed to me that it was of a private nature, and so—so that's why I came away."

"Gee! what does it amount to, since he's letting us go?" said Martin. He stepped to his sister's side and stood with his arm around her waist. For once she seemed unaware of the boy's presence. She was recalling something Albert Frazier had said about the sheriff's opinion of Charles. Could the present visit pertain to him?

"Thank the Lord, he's off!" Kenneth exclaimed. "Bully boy, that chap!"

The brothers went to the doorway, looked all around, and then hastened away to meet their father, who was slowly coming toward the shop. They joined him.

"Where is your sister?" he asked. They told him, and he went on, as if only partially conscious of their eager questions.

"Oh, that's all right!" he said, impatiently. "He is not going to bother you. Oh, Mary, where are you?"

"Here, father," she answered, as she came out, accompanied by Charles. "Did you want me?" It seemed to her that he now glanced at Charles with a look of vague displeasure on his face.

"Yes, I want to see you. Come to the house with me, please."

Mary was sure now that something pertaining to Charles had happened, for her father was treating him in a manner that surely indicated it; the old man had taken no notice of him, and that was most unusual.

Leaving the others in the shop, Rowland led his daughter toward the house. "I wanted to see you about a little matter that may be rather serious," he began. "The sheriff didn't come to see me about the boys at all, but about Mr. Brown."

"About him!" Mary said, faintly. "What about him?"

"He put a lot of questions to me in regard to Mr. Brown," Rowland said, "but I couldn't answer a single one of them. He seemed surprised—astonished, in fact, for he said he didn't see how any sensible man could take in a stranger like Brown unless he had proper credentials. I couldn't even tell him where Mr. Brown came from, who he was, or anything. I tried to explain that Mr. Brown had been so gentlemanly and useful that we hadn't thought such a course necessary, but the sheriff only laughed at me for being so easily hoodwinked."

"Hoodwinked!" Mary protested. "He hasn't hoodwinked us, father. I'm sure he is all we have given him credit for being."

"Well, it seems that the sheriff thinks there is something very suspicious about him. Warrants are out for a number of men who left the circus when Mr. Brown did. The sheriff says that Mr. Brown has been leaving our house at night, and has been seen in town on several occasions. Quite recently he met a stranger at the hotel, a queer fellow with a Northern accent who had refused to register. They were out together the night the gift was made to Mrs. Keith that everybody is talking about, and the man that turned the money over to her answered the description of the stranger that Mr. Brown was with."

"But surely the sheriff is not fool enough to think that giving money away like that was a sign that Mr. Brown was—was a suspicious character!" protested Mary.

"The sheriff thinks that very thing is ground for suspicion," Rowland went on. "He says it may be that Tobe Keith knows more than he has ever let out. It seems that he was seen drinking with some of the circus men. The sheriff thinks that the money was paid over by persons who were afraid Tobe would make some sort of death-bed statement that would implicate Mr. Brown and others. The sheriff found out through one of his men that the same man who met Mr. Brown at the hotel was seen at the hospital in Atlanta where Keith is, and then again here with Mr. Brown. I don't want to be unfair or suspicious of innocent persons, but—now I must be plainer, daughter. I've been afraid that you and Mr. Brown—But I'm sure you know what I mean without my going into it."

"I know what you mean, father," Mary faltered.

"I don't want to offend you, my dear," Rowland went on, "but it seems to be my duty to bring it up. He is an educated man and has the manners of a refined gentleman. In fact, when I used to contrast him with Albert Frazier it seemed to me that a young girl like you could not fail to be impressed with him. He is a good talker and has seen something of the world, evidently. I must say I like him. I like him so much that I almost feel that it is my duty to be more open with him than I can be, for I promised the sheriff that I'd say nothing to him of this. He wants to have him watched for a week or so. In any case, he thinks that under some pretext or other he may arrest him and force him to give an account of himself."

"An account of himself!" Mary repeated the words to herself. Then, touching her father's arm appealingly, she said, aloud: "Do you think you ought—Surely, father, you will not let this change your manner toward Mr. Brown?"

"Why do you ask that?" he demanded.

"Because just now in the shop you treated him coldly. I'm sure he must have noticed it. He is an unhappy, lonely, sensitive man, who—I think—has had some great trouble."

"I didn't mean to treat him differently," Rowland said with regret. "Perhaps I was absorbed in what I had to tell you. But the truth is I must be careful, more careful with you than I have been. I see now that I was wrong to allow you to—to see quite so much of a stranger as you have of this one. You remember you and he were out one entire night—"

"Oh, don't bring that up!" Mary cried. "You know as well as I do how that came about."

"Oh yes, but, nevertheless, you and he were together, and, as I said, he is an attractive man. Right now you are defending him. Think of that, daughter, you are defending a man we know absolutely nothing about, and who I must frankly say has not treated our hospitality with due respect in not producing proper credentials. The profession he was in before he came to us was a queer one for an educated gentleman. You must admit that. Your future and your happiness is in my hands, and a young lady with the ancestry you have had ought to look—"

"Don't mention my ancestry, father," Mary broke in. "It interests you, but it does not interest me. Life, as it is, is too grim and earnest to spend any part of it in digging up the dry bones of dead lords and ladies."

"Blood will tell," Rowland frowned in sudden displeasure. "We are poor and have our troubles, but we know who we are. Yes, I must be more careful with you, my dear. And if Mr. Brown cannot show who and what he is he doesn't deserve my friendship nor your faith in him. Women are sentimental. Whatever they want to be right they think is right. The sheriff has set me to thinking. He just as good as told me that I was crazy to harbor this young man under the circumstances. I won't say anything to Mr. Brown, but I hope you will be careful. You must not let it be said—if the sheriff does arrest him—that you were ever anything more to the young man than—"

"I know nothing wrong about Mr. Brown," Mary broke out, now flushed with anger, "and I know much that is good—much that I cannot tell you. I do not intend to let a coarse man like that sheriff influence my opinion in the slightest. He doesn't know Mr. Brown and I do."

"Still, you must be careful," Rowland urged.

"I don't know what you mean," Mary said, stubbornly. "I don't know as I want to know. I shall have to treat Mr. Brown as my conscience tells me to treat him. I know what he has done and is doing for us, and that is enough for me."

"I know, but you must be careful," her father repeated. "Even the boys must be put on their guard."

"On their guard, indeed!" the girl sniffed. "If you haven't eyes to see that Mr. Brown is making men of them, I have. If you thought as much about your children as you do about your forefathers you would have noticed the wonderful change in their characters that Mr. Brown has brought about by his talks and his example."

"I take your rebuke, my dear, because in a way it is deserved. I have been too much absorbed of late in my history, but the book is about done now, and I shall have more time for other matters. If Mr. Brown has helped the boys I shall be grateful for it; still, good deeds sometimes are done by persons who, to say the least, are unsafe. That reminds me. A letter I once wrote to a branch of the Rowland family happened to reach a man by the name who was serving a long term in prison, and the fact is that he gave me more substantial help in what I wanted than many others who had their freedom and whose respectability was not questioned."

"Why not state in your book"—Mary half smiled—"that the best information you could get about the Rowlands was from a prison?"

"I call that flippant, daughter," Rowland answered, "but it doesn't matter. A sense of humor is a family heritage which has come down from the women of your mother's line, who were noted for their brilliant repartee. I have recorded scores of bright sayings in my book. Your great-great-great-grandmother once said to Washington—"

"I remember it," Mary said, crisply. "The same thing was told of a number of other Colonial dames. Bright remarks must have been scarce in that day of scalps and tomahawks."

Rowland was thinking of something else, and did not smile. They were at the house now, and with one of his unconscious bows he left her to go to his room.