"You better go now, Jack. I'm afraid fer you. Where's your horse?"
Hale waved his hand.
"Down there. All right, little girl," he said. "I ought to go,
anyway." And, to humour her, he started for the gate. There he
bent to kiss her, but she drew back.
"I'm afraid of Dave," she said, but she leaned on the gate and
looked long at him with wistful eyes.
"Jack," she said, and her eyes swam suddenly, "it'll most kill me-
-but I reckon you better not come over here much." Hale made light
of it all.
"Nonsense, I'm coming just as often as I can." June smiled then.
"All right. I'll watch out fer ye."
He went down the path, her eyes following him, and when he looked
back from the spur he saw her sitting in the porch and watching
that she might wave him farewell.
Hale could not go over to Lonesome Cove much that summer, for he
was away from the mountains a good part of the time, and it was a
weary, racking summer for June when he was not there. The step-
mother was a stern taskmistress, and the girl worked hard, but no
night passed that she did not spend an hour or more on her books,
and by degrees she bribed and stormed Bub into learning his A, B,
C's and digging at a blue-back spelling book.
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