But Jackson Wells did not trouble himself about Brown, whom he scarcely knew. Once indeed, while trenching the slope, he was conscious that he was watched by two men from the opposite bank; but they were apparently satisfied by their scrutiny, and turned away. Still less did he concern himself with the movements of his cousin, who once or twice passed him superciliously in her buggy on the road. Again, she met him as one of a cavalcade of riders, mounted on a handsome but ill-tempered mustang, which she was managing with an ill-temper and grace equal to the brute's, to the alternate delight and terror of her cavalier. He could see that she had been petted and spoiled by her new guardian and his friends far beyond his conception. But why she should grudge him the little garden and the pastoral life for which she was so unsuited, puzzled him greatly. One afternoon he was working near the road, when he was startled by an outcry from his Chinese laborers, their rapid dispersal from the strawberry beds where they were working, the splintering crash of his fence rails, and a commotion among the buckeyes. Furious at what seemed to him one of the usual wanton attacks upon coolie labor, he seized his pick and ran to their assistance. But he was surprised to find Jocelinda's mustang caught by the saddle and struggling between two trees, and its unfortunate mistress lying upon the strawberry bed. Shocked but cool-headed, Jackson released the horse first, who was lashing out and destroying everything within his reach, and then turned to his cousin. But she had already lifted herself to her elbow, and with a trickle of blood and mud on one fair cheek was surveying him scornfully under her tumbled hair and hanging hat. “You don't suppose I was trespassing on your wretched patch again, do you?” she said in a voice she was trying to keep from breaking. “It was that brute--who bolted.” “I don't suppose you were bullying ME this time,” he said, “but you were YOUR HORSE--or it wouldn't have happened. Are you hurt?” She tried to move; he offered her his hand, but she shied from it and struggled to her feet. She took a step forward--but limped. “If you don't want my arm, let me call a Chinaman,” he suggested. She glared at him. “If you do I'll scream!” she said in a low voice, and he knew she would. But at the same moment her face whitened, at which he slipped his arm under hers in a dexterous, business-like way, so as to support her weight. Then her hat got askew, and down came a long braid over his shoulder. He remembered it of old, only it was darker than then and two or three feet longer. “If you could manage to limp as far as the gate and sit down on the bank, I'd get your horse for you,” he said. “I hitched it to a sapling.” “I saw you did--before you even offered to help me,” she said scornfully. “The horse would have got away--YOU couldn't.” “If you only knew how I hated you,” she said, with a white face, but a trembling lip.