She lifted her head from his shoulder and touched a finger to his lips. A voice was calling her name. “It’s father,” she warned, unwarrantably alarmed her lover thought. He made to walk a bit with her, but she gently pushed him back into the arbour. Then, giving him her lips, she ran to the house. He should have walked the skies as he returned to the settlement, but somehow complete happiness was held in abeyance until he could learn what it was that Tonpit was to ask of his daughter. His peace of mind could not return until he had seen her again and learned the truth. He had worried none while with her, for joy had destroyed perspective and dulled imagination. He had actually lived in the present, taking toll of each delicious minute. Now he was recalling her father’s reputation as a man of mystery. Back east, before his last trip to the Shawnee country, he had heard strange remarks concerning John Tonpit. Here in Jonesboro the talk was resumed. He could remember when Tonpit was counted a poor man, but now he seemed to be above want. The sordid fact angered him by persisting in invading his speculations. John Sevier had the right of it in saying Tonpit was engaged in a conspiracy—no doubt about that. But it was left for the girl herself to hint that she might be involved in his wretched schemes. “—— his beastly ambitions!” growled Jackson, turning from the trail and throwing himself under a clump of willows. He lighted his pipe and smoked it empty before recovering any of his natural optimism. After all, he told himself, a father could not be unnatural with his only child. Tonpit’s mode of address, even when talking to Elsie, was harsh. That characteristic induced one to attach undue significance to his simplest statements. The girl had permitted his solemn assertions to carry too much weight. She had confused the austere vehicle of his spoken thoughts with the simple meaning of his words. “He’s a queer one,” Jackson admitted as he stowed his pipe preparatory to resuming his walk back to the settlement. “I can imagine the poor child being thrown into a panic by his cold voice announcing it’s going to rain tomorrow.” He chuckled a bit at this caricature of the maid’s awe, then fell back under the willows as the long shadow of a man fell across the sunlight within a few feet of him. Walking noiselessly, the stealthy figure of Lon Hester swung by. For a moment Jackson was tempted to accost him and conclude the little argument started in the tavern. But his impulse vanished because of wonderment at the bully’s presence at this end of the settlement. The tavern was his proper habitat. Again he saw Polcher whispering in the bully’s ear and saw the latter set out afoot with the purposeful step of one going on an important errand. Linked up to this recollection was the girl’s statement that her father had a visitor whom she was unwilling to name.