Part 22

"Oh, but they are sacred," said Miss Becker feelingly, as she looked over the rims of her spectacles at a spot in the sky some forty-five degrees above the steeple of the Congregational Church down the street.

"I don't know as I meant 'em to be sacred at the time," said he; "but there wasn't anything in 'em that was unfittin' for a young lady to read."

"You don't understand. What could be more sacred than the outpourings of love? What more--"

"'Course it was a good many years ago," Mr. Crow was quick to explain.

"Love's young dream," chided Miss Becker coyly.

Mr. Crow twisted his sparse grey beard with unusual tenderness. "Beats all, don't it, Sue, what a poet'll do when he's tryin' to raise a moustache?"

"I am sure I don't know," said Miss Becker stiffly.

"Speakin' about sunsets," said he hastily, after a quick glance at her shaded upper lip, "how's your pa? I heard he had a sinkin' spell yestiday."

"He's better." A moment later, with fine scorn: "His sun hasn't set yet, Mr. Crow."

"Beats all how he hangs on, don't it? Eighty-seven last birthday, an' spry as a man o' fifty up to--" He broke off to devote his attention to a couple of strangers farther down the tree-lined street: two men who approached slowly on the plank sidewalk, pausing every now and then to peer inquiringly at the front doors of houses along the way.

Miss Sue Becker, whose back was toward the strangers, allowed her poetic mind to resume its interest in the sunset.

"Golden cloudlets float upon a coral--What did you say, Mr. Crow?"

"Ever see 'em before, Sue?"

"Hundreds of times. They remind me of the daintiest, fleeciest puffs of--"

"I'm talkin' about those men comin' up the street," said the old town marshal sharply.

Miss Becker abandoned the transient sunset for something more durable. Forty-odd summers had passed over her head.

For one professedly indifferent to the opposite sex, Miss Becker went far toward dislocating her neck when Anderson Crow mentioned the approach of a couple of strange men.

"I've never seen either of them before, Mr. Crow," she said, a little jump in her voice.

"That settles it," said Anderson, putting on his spectacles.

"Settles what?"

"Proves they ain't been in Tinkletown more'n twenty minutes," he replied, much too promptly to suit Miss Becker, who favoured him with a look he wouldn't have forgotten in a long time if he had had eyes in the back of his head. "They must be lookin' for some one," he went on, squinting narrowly. "Good-bye, Sue. See you tomorrer, I suppose."

"I'm not going yet, Mr. Crow," she said, moving a little closer to the fence. "You don't suppose I'm going to let those men pursue me all the way home, do you?"

"They don't look like kidnappers," he said. "Besides, it ain't dark enough yet."

"Just what do you mean by that, Anderson Crow?" she snapped.

"What do I mean by what?" he inquired in some surprise.

"By what you just said."

"I mean you're perfectly safe as long as it's daylight," he retorted. "What else could I mean?"

The two strangers were quite near by this time--near enough, in fact, to cause Miss Becker to lower her voice as she said: