United States or New Zealand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
For the first time now he saw Garton's body, which had been hidden by the table; saw that Garton had had both legs taken off six inches above the knees. He remembered himself, and tried to hide his surprise under some light remark to Billy Jordan. But Garton had seen it, and laughed lightly, although with a slight flush creeping up into his pale cheeks.
"Is it money?" she said in the same little breath of a voice. "Money!" Billy threw back the words in surprise, half contemptuous, "Oh, Lord, no, it's not money! I haven't much of it now, but I'm going to make a bunch of the stuff if I want to." He spoke with naïve and amazing confidence which somehow struck astounded belief into the listener.
"You bet!" said Lin; and though he did not, perhaps, entirely mean this, it was with a curiously softened face that he began to look at Billy. As with dogs and his horse, so always he played with what children he met the few in his sage-brush world; but this was ceasing to be quite play for him, and his hand went to the boy's shoulder.
La Patronne, the wife of Le Boss, who was like a barrel, but not bad, when she could see through the fat, not bad in every way; and there was Old Billy, who took care of the horses and dogs, and he was her friend, and she loved him, and he had always the good word for her even when he was very drunk, too drunk to speak to any one else.
"Master Billy will be delighted, I expect," went on Mr. Linton, not noticing the little girl's silence. "Anything out of the ordinary groove of civilisation is a joy to that primitive young man. I don't fancy it would take much to make a cheerful savage of Billy."
With that end in view she had kept Billy all night in the patio; and when rather late in the morning she saw Linton riding eastward, she hurriedly threw saddle and bridle on the horse and rode westward, toward the big basin.
As the men did not seem to seek each other, the boys had ample time to "grind things down to a pint," as the camp concisely expressed it, and the matter had given excuse for a dozen minor fights, when order was suddenly restored one afternoon by the entrance of Billy and his neighbors, just as the Judge and his neighbors were finishing a drink.
"I envy her, by George, I do, and I envy you," said Billy. He did not envy Dic; but you may remember my remarks concerning bachelor hearts and their unprotected condition in this cruel world. There may be pain of the sort Billy felt without either envy or jealousy. "Dic, I have a mind to send Rita a nice ribbon or two for to-night. What do you think about it?" asked Billy.
Oh, this is the kitchen, to which," thought he, "the Lord of Arnwood is dismissed by a Covenanter and Roundhead, probably a tradesman or outlaw, who has served the cause. Well, be it so; as Humphrey says, `I'll bide my time. But there is no one here, so I'll try if there is a stable for White Billy, who is tired, I presume, of being at the gate."
Geoffrey was astonished to find that he really was, as he said, something of an artist. He waited until he was fairly started and then returned to the library. "Is that Billy?" said the girl. "It must be a great pleasure to him to have a piano again. He is so fond of music." "He was not as eager to play as I to have him," said Geoffrey.
Word Of The Day