"Gale's in love with her, Mr. Thane," explained Rosabel. "She's five years older than he is, and don't know he's on earth."
"Aw, cut that out," growled Caleb.
"Is she good-looking?" inquired Courtney Thane.
"I don't like 'em quite as tall as she is," said Mr. White.
"She's got a good pair of legs," said old Caleb Brown, shifting his cigar with his tongue.
"We're not talking about horses, father," said Mrs. Vick sharply.
"Who said we was?" demanded old Caleb.
"Most people think she's good-looking," said Rosabel, somewhat grudgingly. "And she isn't any taller than I am, Mr. White."
"Well, you ain't no dwarft, Rosie," exclaimed Farmer White, with a brave laugh. "You must be five foot seven or eight, but you ain't skinny like she is. She'd ought to weigh about a hunderd and sixty, for her height, and I'll bet she don't weigh more'n a hunderd and thirty."
"I wouldn't call that skinny," remarked Courtney.
"She wears these here new-fangled britches when she's on horseback," said old Caleb, justifying his observation. "Rides straddle, like a man. You can't help seeing what kind of—"
"That will do, Pa," broke in his wife. "It's no crime for a woman to wear pants when she's riding, although I must say I don't think it's very modest. I never rode any way except side-saddle—and neither has Rosabel. I've brought her up—"
"Don't you be too sure of that, Ma," interrupted young Caleb maliciously.
"I never did it but once, and you know it, Cale Vick," cried Rosabel, blushing violently.
The subject was abruptly changed by Mr. White.
"Well, I guess I'll be moseyin' along home, Amos. That certainly did sound like thunder, didn't it? And that tree-toad has stopped signallin'—that's a sure sign. Like as not I'll get caught in the rain if I don't—what say, Lucindy?"
"Do you want an umberell, Steve?"
"I should say not! What do you want me to do? Scare the rain off? No, sir! Rain's the funniest thing in the world. If it sees you got an umberell it won't come within a hunderd miles of you. That's why I got my Sunday clothes on, and my new straw hat. Sometimes that'll bring rain out of a clear sky—that an' a Sunday-school picnic. It's a pity we couldn't have got up a Sunday-school picnic—but then, of course, that wouldn't have done any good. You can't fool a rainstorm. So long, Amos. Night, everybody. Night, Courtney. As I was sayin' awhile ago, I used to go to school with your pa when him an' me was little shavers—up yonder at the old Kennedy schoolhouse. Fifty odd years ago. Seems like yesterday. How old did you say you was?"
"Twenty-eight, Mr. White."
"And your pa's been dead—how long did you say?"
"He died when I was twenty-two."
"Funny your ma didn't bring him out here and bury him 'longside his father and all the rest of 'em up in the family burying-ground," was Mr. White's concluding observation as he ambled off down the gravel walk to the front gate.
"I wish you'd brought your croix de guerre along with you, Mr. Thane," said young Caleb, his eyes gleaming in the faint light from the open door. "I guess I don't pronounce it as it ought to be. I'm not much of a hand at French."
"You came pretty close to it," said Thane, with a smile. "You see, Cale, it's the sort of thing one puts away in a safe place. That's why I left it in New York. Mother likes to look at it occasionally. Mothers are queer creatures, you know. They like to be reminded of the good things their sons have done. It helps 'em to forget the bad things, I suppose."
"You're always joking," pouted Rosabel, leaning forward, ardour in her wide, young eyes. "If I was a boy and had been in the war, I'd never stop talking about it."
"And I'd have been in it, too, if pa hadn't up and told 'em I was only a little more than fifteen," said Cale, glowering at his father in the darkness.
"You mustn't blame your pa, Cale," rebuked his mother. "He knows what a soldier's life is better than you do. He was down in that camp at Chattanooga during the Spanish War, and almost died of typhoid, Courtney. And when I think of the way our boys died by the millions of the flu, I—well, I just know you would have died of it, sonny, and I wouldn't have had any cross or medal to look at, and—and—"
"Don't begin cryin', Lucindy," broke in old Caleb hastily. "He didn't die of the flu, so what's the sense of worryin' about it now? He didn't even ketch it, and gosh knows, the whole blamed country was full of it that winter."
"Well," began Mrs. Vick defensively, and then compressed her lips in silence.
"I think it was perfectly wonderful of you, Mr. Thane, to go over to France and fight in the American Ambulance so long before we went into the war." This from the adoring Rosabel. "I wish you'd tell us more about your experiences. They must have been terrible. You never talk about them, though. I think the real heroes were the fellows who went over when you did—when you didn't really have to, because America wasn't in it."
"The American Ambulance wasn't over there to fight, you know," explained Courtney.
"What did you get the cross for if you weren't fighting?" demanded young Cale.
"For doing what a whole lot of other fellows did—simply going out and getting a wounded man or two in No-Man's Land. We didn't think much about it at the time."
"Was it very dangerous?" asked Rosabel.
"I suppose it was—more or less so," replied Thane indifferently. He even yawned. "I'd rather talk about Alix the Third, if it's all the same to you. Is she light or dark?"
"She's a brunette," said Rosabel shortly. "All except her eyes. They're blue. How long were you up at the front, Mr. Thane?"
"Oh, quite a while—several months, in fact. At first we were in a place where there wasn't much fighting. Just before the first big Verdun drive we were transferred to that sector, and then we saw a lot of action."
"Some battle, wasn't it?" exclaimed young Cale, a thrill in his voice.
"Certainly was," said Courtney. "We used to work forty-eight hours at a stretch, taking 'em back by the thousands."
"How near did the shells ever come to you?"
"Oh, sometimes as close as twenty or thirty feet. I remember one that dropped in the road about fifty feet ahead of my car, and before I could stop we ran plunk into the hole it made and upset. I suppose the Windom estate must be a pretty big one, isn't it, Mr. Vick?"
"Taking everything into consideration, it amounts to nearly a million dollars. David Windom had quite a bit of property up in the city, aside from his farm, and he owned a big ranch out in Texas. The grain elevator in Windomville belonged to him—still belongs to Alix Crown—and there's a three mile railroad connecting with the main line over at Smith's Siding. Every foot of it is on his land. He built the railroad about twenty year ago, and the elevator, too—out of spite, they say, for the men that run the elevator at Hawkins a little further up the road. Hawkins is the place where his daughter and Edward Crown got off the train the night of the murder."
"And this young girl owns all of it—farms, ranch, railroad and everything?"
"Every cent's worth of it is her'n. There ain't a sign of a mortgage on any of it, either. It's as clear as a blank sheet of writin' paper."
"When was it you were gassed, Mr. Thane?" inquired young Caleb.
"Oh, that was when I was in the air service—only a few weeks before the armistice."
"You left your wings at home, too, I suppose?"
"Yes. Mother likes to look at the only wings I'll probably ever have—now or hereafter."
"How