“Exactly!  I saw it whar a minit afore nothin’ had been standin’, and a minit after nothin’ stood,” said Larry Hawkins, with a certain serious emphasis; “but I warn’t goin’ to say it to anybody, and I warn’t goin’ to give you and the hacienda away.  And ez nobody knew Raintree’s story, I jest shut up my head.  But you kin bet your life that the man I saw warn’t no livin’ man!”

“We’ll see, sah!” said the colonel, rising from his chair with his fingers in the armholes of his nankeen waistcoat, “ef he ever intrudes on my property again.  But look yar! don’t ye go sayin’ anything of this to Polly,—­you know what women are!”

A faint color came into Larry’s face; an animation quite different to the lazy deliberation of his previous monologue shone in his eyes, as he said, with a certain rough respect he had not shown before to his companion, “That’s why I’m tellin’ ye, so that ef she happened to see anything and got skeert, ye’d know how to reason her out of it.”

“’Sh!” said the colonel, with a warning gesture.

A young girl had just appeared in the doorway, and now stood leaning against the central pillar that supported it, with one hand above her head, in a lazy attitude strongly suggestive of the colonel’s Southern indolence, yet with a grace entirely her own.  Indeed, it overcame the negligence of her creased and faded yellow cotton frock and unbuttoned collar, and suggested—­at least to the eyes of one man—­the curving and clinging of the jasmine vine against the outer column of the veranda.  Larry Hawkins rose awkwardly to his feet.

“Now what are you two men mumblin’ and confidin’ to each other?  You look for all the world like two old women gossips,” she said, with languid impertinence.

It was easy to see that a privileged and recognized autocrat spoke.  No one had ever questioned Polly Swinger’s right to interrupting, interfering, and saucy criticisms.  Secure in the hopeless or chivalrous admiration of the men around her, she had repaid it with a frankness that scorned any coquetry; with an indifference to the ordinary feminine effect or provocation in dress or bearing that was as natural as it was invincible.  No one had ever known Polly to “fix up” for anybody, yet no one ever doubted the effect, if she had.  No one had ever rebuked her charming petulance, or wished to.

Larry gave a weak, vague laugh.  Colonel Swinger as ineffectively assumed a mock parental severity.  “When you see two gentlemen, miss, discussin’ politics together, it ain’t behavin’ like a lady to interrupt.  Better run away and tidy yourself before the stage comes.”

The young lady replied to the last innuendo by taking two spirals of soft hair, like “corn silk,” from her oval cheek, wetting them with her lips, and tucking them behind her ears.  Her father’s ungentlemanly suggestion being thus disposed of, she returned to her first charge.

“It ain’t no politics; you ain’t been swearing enough for that!  Come, now!  It’s the mysterious stranger ye’ve been talking about!”