She felt warmly drawn to him by the strange expression in the glance he had given his brother.

The tenderness in his eyes did not harmonize with much of this wild and reckless boy's behavior.

To Kate he had always seemed so bold, so cold, so different from other men, and yet here was proof that Master Joe loved his brother.
The murmured conversation of the two ministers was interrupted by a low cry from outside the cabin.

A loud, coarse laugh followed, and then a husky voice: "Hol' on, my purty lass."' Joe took two long strides, and was on the door-step.

He saw Nell struggling violently in the grasp of the half-drunken teamster.
"I'll jes' hev' to kiss this lassie fer luck," he said in a tone of good humor.
At the same instant Joe saw three loungers laughing, and a fourth, the grizzled frontiersman, starting forward with a yell.
"Let me go!" cried Nell.
Just when the teamster had pulled her close to him, and was bending his red, moist face to hers, two brown, sinewy hands grasped his neck with an angry clutch.