red pepper-pods, and twists of homegrown tobacco, the girl's eyes
taking in the old spinning-wheel in the corner, the piles of
brilliantly figured quilts between the foot-boards of the two beds
ranged along one side of the room, and the boy's, catching eagerly
the butt of a big revolver projecting from the mantel-piece, a
Winchester standing in one corner, a long, old-fashioned squirrel
rifle athwart a pair of buck antlers over the front door, and a
bunch of cane fishing-poles aslant the wall of the back porch.
Presently a slim, drenched figure slipped quietly in, then
another, and Mavis stood on one side of the fire-place and little
Jason on the other. The two girls exchanged a swift glance and
Mavis's eyes fell; abashed, she knotted her hands shyly behind her
and with the hollow of one bare foot rubbed the slender arch of
the other. The stranger boy looked up at Jason with a pleasant
glance of recognition, got for his courtesy a sullen glare that
travelled from his broad white collar down to his stockinged legs,
and his face flushed; he would have trouble with that mountain
boy. Before the fire old Jason Hawn stood, and through a smoke
cloud from his corn-cob pipe looked kindly at his two little
guests.

"So that's yo' boy an' gal?"

"That's my son Gray," said Colonel Pendleton.

"And that's my cousin Marjorie," said the lad, and Mavis looked
quickly to little Jason for recognition of this similar
relationship and got no answering glance, for little did he care
at that moment of hostility how those two were akin.