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She impulsively hugged his yellow head to her cheeks with both her arms, so that when Jamie came up he had to content himself by similarly hugging the little man's left knee, and kissing the mud-stains on his trousers into liquid patches. But Scipio was impartial. He sat Vada down and picked her brother up. Then, taking the former's hand in his horny clasp, bore the boy towards the house.
The last good-bye was said, and they drove sadly home in a fine, drenching rain that had suddenly fallen like a vail over their golden day. 'Vada had started the open fires and they were cheerfully cracking, while Polly from her pole croaked crossly, "Shut up, do! Quit making all that fuss!" Mrs.
And the next moment, as their father passed in through the doorway, they turned to the sand and stone castle they had been laboriously and futilely attempting to mold into some shape. "Now you bring up more stones," cried Vada authoritatively. "Run along, dear," she added patronizingly, as the boy stood with his small hands on his hips, staring vacantly after his father.
He only saw the reflected glory of their mother in them. Their resemblance to her was all that really mattered to him, but, as a matter of fact, this resemblance lay chiefly in Vada. She was like her mother in an extraordinary degree. She was well-grown, strong, and quite in advance of her years, in her speech and brightness of intellect.
"Pop-pa!" shrieked Vada, dropping a paper full of loose dirt and stones upon her sprawling brother's back, in her haste to reach her diminutive parent. "Uh!" grunted Jamie, scrambling to his feet and tottering heavily in the same direction. There was a curious difference in the size and growth of these twins. Probably it utterly escaped the adoring eyes of their father.
Whether it was the smacking of his lips as he dwelt on the last word, or whether it was merely the fact that their fright was passing, matters little; anyhow, the cries of the twins died out as suddenly as they began, and their eyes, big and round, gazed wonderingly up at Sunny's unkempt face. "Who's you, ugly man?" asked Vada at last, her brain working more quickly than her brother's.
"The dark man," said Vada readily, but wrinkling her forehead struggling for the name. "Uh!" agreed Jamie. "Mister Dames." Just for a moment a sharp question lit Scipio's pale eyes. But the little ones had no understanding of it.
My little girl my little Vada." The man had risen from his chair and moved to the window. He sat on the rough sill facing her. His eyes were hot with passion, too, but it was passion of a very different sort. "And if I do?" he questioned subtly. "If you do?" Jessie's eyes widened with a world of cunning simplicity. "Yes, if I do?" The man's face was nearer. "You'll have fulfilled your promise."
The presence of Vada would certainly have added to her happiness, she was so fond of her children. Then he remembered his instructions. Bill had said he must go alone. He must go alone and be prepared to fight for her. Bill was a wonderful man. He seemed to be able to do anything he chose. And somehow he felt sorry he had bluffed him into buying half his claim.
This was not a time when any drastic methods could serve him, and he adopted the only course which his shrewd sense told him would be likely to avail. Gently but firmly he took the boy out of her arms. "You want him to go with us?" he said kindly. "Very well. Maybe we're doing wrong I mean, for his sake. Anyhow, I'll carry him, and then I'll come back for Vada. It's not good.
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