Presently he bent over and put his big
hand on her head. It seemed gentle and tender compared with former contacts,
and it made Lucy thrill. She could not see his face. What did he mean? She
divined something startling, and sat there trembling in suspense.
"Bostil won't lose his only girl--or his favorite hoss! . . . Lucy, I never
had no girl. But it seems I'm rememberin' them rides you used to have on my
knee when you was little!"
Then he strode away toward the forest. Lucy watched him with a full heart, and
as she thought of his overcoming the evil in him when her father had yielded
to it, she suffered poignant shame. This Creech was not a bad man. He was
going to let her go, and he was going to return Bostil's horses when they
came. Lucy resolved with a passionate determination that her father must make
ample restitution for the loss Creech had endured. She meant to tell Creech
so.
Upon his return, however, he seemed so strange and forbidding again that her
heart failed her. Had he reconsidered his generous thought? Lucy almost
believed so.
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