"
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!"
Both men stared at her with unaffected concern.
"What do YOU know about any mysterious stranger?" demanded her father.
"Do you suppose you men kin keep a secret," scoffed Polly. "Why, Dick
Ruggles told me how skeert ye all were over an entire stranger, and he
advised me not to wander down the road after dark. I asked him if he
thought I was a pickaninny to be frightened by bogies, and that if
he hadn't a better excuse for wantin' 'to see me home' from the Injin
spring, he might slide."
Larry laughed again, albeit a little bitterly, for it seemed to him that
the excuse was fully justified; but the colonel said promptly, "Dick's
a fool, and you might have told him there were worse things to be met on
the road than bogies.
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