He knew everything that was going on in the mountains. He
had come back "ready for business," he said. When he made ready to
go, June went to her room and stayed there, but she heard him say
to her father that he was going over to the Gap, and with a laugh
that chilled her soul:
"I'm goin' over to kill me a policeman." And her father warned
gruffly:
"You better keep away from thar. You don't understand them
fellers." And she heard Rufe's brutal laugh again, and as he rode
into the creek his horse stumbled and she saw him cut cruelly at
the poor beast's ears with the rawhide quirt that he carried. She
was glad when all went home, and the only ray of sunlight in the
day for her radiated from Uncle Billy's face when, at sunset, he
came to take old Hon home. The old miller was the one unchanged
soul to her in that he was the one soul that could see no change
in June. He called her "baby" in the old way, and he talked to her
now as he had talked to her as a child. He took her aside to ask
her if she knew that Hale had got his license to marry, and when
she shook her head, his round, red face lighted up with the
benediction of a rising sun:
"Well, that's what he's done, baby, an' he's axed me to marry ye,"
he added, with boyish pride, "he's axed ME.
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