have lived in this neighbourhood since I was eight years old," she said, quietly.
Striker hastened to add: "Somethin' like ten or 'leven years,—'leven, I reckon, ain't it?"
"Eleven years," she replied.
Gwynne was secretly astonished and rather skeptical. He would have taken oath that she was twenty-two or -three years old, and not nineteen as computation made her.
"She ain't lived here all the time," volunteered Eliza, somewhat defensively. "She was to school in St. Louis fer two or three years an'—"
The young lady interrupted the speaker coldly. "Please, Eliza!"
Eliza, looking considerably crestfallen, accepted the rebuke meekly. "I jest thought he'd be interested," she murmured.
"She came up the Wabash when she was nothin' but a striplin'," began Striker, not profiting by his wife's experience. He might have gone on at considerable length if he had not met the reproving, violet eye. He changed the subject hastily. "As I was sayin', we've had a powerful lot o' rain lately. Why, by gosh, last week you could have went fishin' in our pertato patch up yander an' got a mess o' sunfish in less'n no time. I never knowed the Wabash to be on setch a rampage. An' as fer the Wild Cat Crick and Tippecanoe River, why, they tell me there ain't been anything like—How's that?"
"Is Wabash an Indian name?" repeated Kenneth.
"That's what they say. Named after a tribe that used to hunt an' fish up an' down her, they say."
"There was once a tribe of Indians in this part of the country," broke in the girl, with sudden zest, "known as the Ouabachi. We know very little about them nowadays, however. They were absorbed by other and stronger tribes far back in the days of the French occupation, I suppose. French trappers and voyageurs are known to have traversed and explored the wilderness below here at least one hundred and fifty years ago. There is an old French fort quite near here,—Ouiatanon."
"She knows purty nigh everything," said Phineas, proudly. "Well, I guess we're about as full as it's safe to be, so now's your chance, Zachariah."
He pushed back his stool noisily and arose. Taking up the two candlesticks, he led the way to the sitting-room, stopping at the door for a word of instruction to the negro. "You c'n put your blankets down here on the kitchen floor when you're ready to go to bed. Mrs. Striker will kick you in the mornin' if you ain't awake when she comes out to start breakfast."
"Yassuh, yassuh," grinned the hungry darkey. "Missus won't need fo' to kick more'n once, suh,—'cause Ise gwine to be hungry all over ag'in 'long about breakfus time,—yas-SUH!"
"Zachariah will wash the dishes and—" began Kenneth, addressing Mrs. Striker, who was already preparing to cleanse and dry her pots and pans. She interrupted him.
"He won't do nothin' of the kind. I don't let nobody wash my dishes but myself. Set down here, Zachariah, an' help yourself. When you're done, you c'n go out an' carry me in a couple of buckets o' water from the well,—an, that's all you CAN do."
"I guess I'll go out an' take a look around the barn an' pens," said Phineas, depositing the candles on the mantelpiece. "See if everything's still there after the storm. No, Mr. Gwynne,—you set down. No need o' you goin' out there an' gettin' them boots o' your'n all muddy."
He took up the lantern and lighted the tallow wick from one of the candles. Then he fished a corncob pipe from his coattail pocket and stuffed it full of tobacco from a small buckskin bag hanging at the end of the mantel.
"He'p yourself to tobaccer if you keer to smoke. There's a couple o' fresh pipes up there,—jest made 'em yesterday,—an' it ain't ag'inst the law to smoke in the house on rainy nights. Used to be a time when we was first married that I had to go out an' git wet to the skin jest because she wouldn't 'low no tobaccer smoke in the house. Many's the time I've sot on the doorstep here enjoyin' a smoke with the rain comin' down so hard it'd wash the tobaccer right out o' the pipe, an' twice er maybe it was three times it biled over an'—What's that you say?"
"I did not say anything, Phineas," said the girl, shaking her head mournfully. "I am wondering, though, where you will go when you die."
"Where I c'n smoke 'thout runnin' the risk o' takin' cold, more'n likely," replied Phineas, winking at the young man. Then he went out into the windy night, closing the door behind him.
CHAPTER III — SOMETHING ABOUT CLOTHES, AND MEN, AND CATS
Smiling over the settler's whimsical humour, Gwynne turned to his companion, anticipating a responsive smile. Instead he was rewarded by an expression of acute dismay in her dark eyes. He recalled seeing just such a look in the eyes of a cornered deer. She met his gaze for a fleeting instant and then, turning away, walked rapidly over to the little window, where she peered out into the darkness. He waited a few moments for her to recover the composure so inexplicably lost, and then spoke,—not without a trace of coldness in his voice.
"Pray have this chair." He drew the rocking-chair up to the fireplace, setting it down rather sharply upon the strip of rag carpet that fronted the wide rock-made hearth. "You need not be afraid to be left alone with me. I am a most inoffensive person."
He saw her figure straighten. Then she faced him, her chin raised, a flash of indignation in her eyes.
"I am not afraid of you," she said haughtily. "Why should you presume to make such a remark to me?"
"I beg your pardon," he said, bowing. "I am sorry if I have offended you. No doubt, in my stupidity, I have been misled by your manner. Now, will you sit down—and be friendly?"
His smile was so engaging, his humility so genuine, that her manner underwent a swift and agreeable change. She advanced slowly to the fireplace, a shy, abashed smile playing about her lips.
"May I not stand up for a little while?" she pleaded, with mock submissiveness. "I do so want to grow tall."
"To that I can offer no objection," he returned; "although in my humble opinion you would do yourself a very grave injustice if you added so much as the eighth of an inch to your present height."
"I feel quite small beside you, sir," she said, taking her stand at the opposite end of the hearth, from which position she looked up into his admiring eyes.
"I am an overgrown, awkward lummix," he said airily. "The boys called me 'beanpole' at college."
"You are not an awkward lummix, as you call yourself,—though what a lummix is I have not the slightest notion. Mayhap if you stood long enough you might grow shorter. They say men do,—as they become older." She ran a cool, amused eye over his long, well-proportioned figure, taking in the butter-nut coloured trousers, the foppish waistcoat, the high-collared blue coat, and the handsome brown-thatched head that topped the whole creation. He was almost a head taller than she, and yet she was well above medium height.
"How old are you?" she asked, abruptly. Again she was serious, unsmiling.
"Twenty-five," he replied, looking down into her dark, inquiring eyes with something like eagerness in his own. He was saying
