One of the men jumped out of the machine. He had recognized that voice.

"Jacqueline Kildare, you wild hoodlum! What have you been up to?"

Into the lamplight rode a disheveled figure straddling a horse bareback, her pink gingham skirts well up above her knees, hair flowing in a cascade of splendor about her shoulders.

"Oh, Reverend Flip, were you in time for the fun?" she asked, weakly.

"'The a.s.syrian came down like a wolf on the fold.' Those bold, bad 'Possum Hunters' will never be able to hold up their heads in _this_ county again! Routed by a girl with a troop of cattle!" (It may be added that she spoke no less than prophecy.)

"The 'Possum Hunters'! Do you mean to say _you've_ been mixed up in this performance? My dear girl," said Philip, sternly, "what will your mother say."

"She'll kick herself to think of missing it!" cried Kate Kildare's daughter, and was off on another peal of laughter in which the three men joined with a will.

"I should have been sorry to miss it myself," said a voice which Jacqueline recognized, behind the headlight. "Better one night of Kentucky than a cycle of Cathay."

Jacqueline made ineffectual attempts upon her skirts, blushing, but she said demurely enough, "Why, if it isn't the author, just in time for some more local color! Where did you come from, Mr. Channing?"

"From Holiday Hill, where I am visiting my friend Farwell. Your sister telephoned for help, and we were on our way to the rescue. Farwell,"

continued Channing, "is now nudging me in the ribs and demanding to be properly introduced. Do you mind? Mr. Farwell, Miss Kildare."

Jacqueline's eyes were sparkling. "One ahead of Jemmy," she thought, triumphantly. The owner of the great new house five miles away which made Kate Kildare feel crowded, was an object of no small interest to her daughters.

"We've been _so_ anxious to see you, Mr. Farwell! I wish it weren't dark," she said with her usual frankness. "We've been so afraid you would be old, or fat, or married, or something like that."

"What have I done," murmured a plaintive voice, "to deserve such unkind suspicions? Why old and fat?"

"Because rich. They usually go together--in books, at any rate. And it would be just our luck to have you married, when we're so dreadfully in need of beaux. _Are_ you married?"

"Alas, yes! But does marriage bar one absolutely?"

Jacqueline considered. "Well, no, I don't suppose it does--except for marrying purposes. Not unless you're old and fat, too," she added, gravely.

"I do a.s.sure you!" Mr. Farwell leaped nimbly out of the car and struck an att.i.tude in the full glare of the headlight, as one who would say, "Take a look at me. Gaze your fill."

Jacqueline did so with full and unqualified approval. Mr. Farwell was distinctly worth looking at.

"What a pity you are married!" she said sadly. "It will be a great blow to Jemima.--I must go home and break it to her. I suppose she's still at the telephone a.s.sembling the clans. Did she telephone you too, Philip, man of peace?"

"Naturally, sensible girl that she is, instead of charging about in the dark like an avenging fury in pink gingham."

She made a face at him. "Just the same, it was me and not Jemmy who saved Henderson a whipping!" she remarked, with more satisfaction than grammar.

"And where is Henderson now?"

Her face went blank. "Good gracious, I forgot all about him! He's tied to a tree in front of the cabin."

"I'm not surprised. Perhaps we'd better go and untie him," suggested Benoix. "Thanks for the lift, Mr. Farwell. It saved me a long walk. My old horse was too done to take out this evening. Are you ready, Jacqueline?"

He caught one of the grazing thoroughbreds and straddled it with an ease that filled the author's soul with envy. Channing was no horseman.

"Do you mean to say you are going to ride that prancing beast without either bit or bridle?" he murmured.

The clergyman smiled. "It doesn't take much riding to persuade a horse to go home. Besides, Mrs. Kildare's horses know me. Come, Jacqueline."

Farwell protested. "Why not let me run Miss Kildare home in the machine, while you go and liberate the late victim? She must be tired after such an experience."

Benoix answered for her, rather brusquely. "Jacqueline is too young to know what it is to be tired. I'll go home with her, thanks. Good night."

He turned up the lane, and the girl followed, leaving her scattered cavalry to be herded home by the two negro boys. It would have been pleasant, she thought, to have appeared at Storm in an automobile, with not only the author in tow, but the interesting stranger as well, to the confounding of Jemima. Her voice came back through the darkness rather wistfully.

"Good-by. Wasn't it lucky you happened along in time?"

"It was indeed!" they replied with one voice.

"I hope," she called sweetly, "that you will think it necessary to come and inquire about my health. That would be only polite, don't you think?"

They agreed with her.

"There!" she said to Philip. "Didn't I do that nicely? Jemmy herself couldn't have been more young lady-like. Do tell me how you happened to know Mr. Farwell, and why you haven't introduced him to us? Didn't you know we were wild to see him?"

Benoix did not answer. His silence gave an effect of displeasure.

She put her horse closer to his, and laid a coaxing hand on his arm.

"Why, Reverend Flip, I believe you are cross with me! What about--not because I came to Henderson's rescue, surely? I couldn't let those men get poor Mag's father! She said they would have killed him."

Philip murmured, "Not such a bad thing if they did."

"Philip! What did you say?"

"I said," he replied mendaciously, "that you have behaved foolishly and riskily, and with no dignity whatever. 'Young lady-like' indeed! Riding about the country bareback, with your hair down, and your skirts above your knees! What do you suppose those strange men thought of that?"

"I think they liked it," she said candidly. "They looked as if they did.

You see neither of them is my spiritual pastor and master, so they don't have to be shocked by me." She gave him a demure, sidelong glance.

"I am not shocked either, you know that. Only--" said Philip.

"Only you wish I were more like Jemmy," she pouted. "Stiff, and proper, and prim--"

"I don't want you to be like any one but yourself," he said warmly, and paused. Suddenly he realized the change that was coming over this little playmate of his, half child and half woman as she was. The woman was beginning to predominate. He remembered her with Mag's baby, her almost pa.s.sionate tenderness, her precocious knowledge of the child's needs. He remembered her manner with the two men they had just left, coquettish, innocently provocative. It had startled him. Evidently, Jacqueline was becoming aware of certain powers in herself which she was not averse to practising upon whatever victims came to hand; even upon her spiritual pastor and master.

"Jacqueline," he said gravely, "you are growing up. You must remember it. Why did you talk to a strange man like that?"

She chuckled. "Like what?"

"You know what I mean."

"Well--because I wanted him to come and see us. He's a neighbor, and we ought to be friends with him. And then--I'll tell you this, Philip, because you're my chum--I wanted that author man to notice me! He treated me like a silly child the last time. He won't again."

"I see,"--Philip smiled in spite of himself. "Nevertheless, you can't be too careful and dignified with strange men, dear."