At the gate she shaded her eyes with her hand, and glanced
upward.
"It don't seem to be a good day for arbitrating. A trifle early in the
season, ain't it?"
"Good-morning, Miss McKinstry."
She held out her hand. He took it with an affected ease but cautiously,
as if it had been the velvet paw of a young panther who had scratched
him. After all, what was she but the cub of the untamed beast,
McKinstry? He was well out of it! He was not revengeful--but business
was business, and he had given them the first chance.
As his figure disappeared behind the buckeyes of the lane, Cressy cast a
glance at the declining sun. She re-entered the house, and went directly
to her room. As she passed the window, she could see her father already
remounted galloping towards the tules, as if in search of that riparian
"kam" his late interview had disturbed. A few straggling bits of color
in the sloping meadows were the children coming home from school. She
hastily tied a girlish sun-bonnet under her chin, and slipping out of
the back door, swept like a lissom shadow along the line of fence
until she seemed to melt into the umbrage of the woods that fringed the
distant north boundary.
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