Hale waited and
ran down to meet him, his face and eyes eager and his lips
trembling, but again Uncle Billy was shaking his head.
"No use, John," he said sadly. "I got her out on the porch and
axed her, but she won't come."
"She won't come at all?"
"John, when one o' them Tollivers gits white about the mouth, an'
thar eyes gits to blazin' and they KEEPS QUIET--they're plumb out
o' reach o' the Almighty hisself. June skeered me. But you mustn't
blame her jes' now. You see, you got up that guard. You ketched
Rufe and hung him, and she can't help thinkin' if you hadn't done
that, her old daddy wouldn't be in thar on his back nigh to death.
You mustn't blame her, John--she's most out o' her head now."
"All right, Uncle Billy. Good-by." Hale turned, climbed sadly back
to his horse and sadly dropped down the other side of the mountain
and on through the rocky gap-home.
A week later he learned from the doctor that the chances were even
that old Judd would get well, but the days went by with no word of
June. Through those days June wrestled with her love for Hale and
her loyalty to her father, who, sick as he was, seemed to have a
vague sense of the trouble within her and shrewdly fought it by
making her daily promise that she would never leave him.
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