But don't you fret; Wash Gibbs ain't goin' to hurt me, and he won't come here more'n I can help, either." Then he changed the subject abruptly.

"Tell me what you've been doin' while I was away." Sammy told of' her visit to their friends at the Matthews place, and of the stranger who had come into the neighborhood.

As the girl talked, her father questioned her carefully, and several times the metallic note crept into his soft, drawling speech, while into his eyes came that peculiar, searching look, as if he would draw from his daughter even more than she knew of the incident.

Once he rose, and, going to the door, stood looking out into the night.
Sammy finished with her answer to Mandy Ford's opinion of the stranger; "You don't reckon a revenue would ask a blessin', do you, Daddy?
Seems like he just naturally wouldn't dast; God would make the victuals stick in his throat and choke him sure." Jim laughed, as he replied, "I don't know, girl; I never heard of a revenue's doin' such.

But a feller can't tell." When Sammy left him to retire for the night, her father picked up the violin again, and placed it beneath his chin as if to play; but he did not touch the strings, and soon hung the instrument in its place above the mantel.