“You mustn't go,” she panted. “It's the only way to stop you.” “Go back to the house!” he shouted, savagely. “Will you come?” “Fer God's sake,” cried William Todd, “come back! Keep out of the road.” He was emptying his revolver at the clump of elder, the uproar of his firing blasting the night. Some one screamed from the house: “Helen! Helen!” John seized the girl's wrists roughly; her gray eyes flashed into his defiantly. “Will you go?” he roared. “No!” He dropped her wrists, caught her up in his arms as if she had been a kitten, and leaped into the shadow of the trees that leaned over the road from the yard. The rifle rang out again, and the little ball whistled venomously overhead. Harkless ran along the fence and turned in at the gate. A loose strand of the girl's hair blew across his cheek, and in the moon her head shone with gold. She had light-brown hair and gray eyes and a short upper lip like a curled rose-leaf. He set her down on the veranda steps. Both of them laughed wildly. “But you came with me!” she gasped triumphantly. “I always thought you were tall,” he answered; and there was afterward a time when he had to agree that this was a somewhat vague reply. CHAPTER VI. JUNE Judge Briscoe smiled grimly and leaned on his shot-gun in the moonlight by the veranda. He and William Todd had been trampling down the elder-bushes, and returning to the house, found Minnie alone on the porch. “Safe?” he said to his daughter, who turned an anxious face upon him. “They'll be safe enough now, and in our garden.” “Maybe I oughtn't to have let them go,” she returned, nervously. “Pooh! They're all right; that scalawag's half-way to Six-Cross-Roads by this time, isn't he, William?” “He tuck up the fence like a scared rabbit,” Mr. Todd responded, looking into his hat to avoid meeting the eyes of the lady. “I didn't have no call to toller, and he knowed how to run, I reckon. Time Mr. Harkless come out the yard again, he was near out o' sight, and we see him take across the road to the wedge-woods, near half-a-mile up. Somebody else with him then--looked like a kid. Must 'a' cut acrost the field to join him. They're fur enough towards home by this.” “Did Miss Helen shake hands with you four or five times?” asked Briscoe, chuckling. “No. Why?” “Because Harkless did. My hand aches, and I guess William's does, too; he nearly shook our arms off when we told him he'd been a fool. Seemed to do him good. I told him he ought to hire somebody to take a shot at him every morning before breakfast--not that it's any joking matter,” the old gentleman finished, thoughtfully.