The moonshiner received with complacence this evidence of yielding on the girl's part. He had, indeed, the vanity that usually characterizes the criminal. It was inconceivable to his egotism that he must be odious to any decent woman. Plutina's avaricious stipulation concerning money pleased him as a display of feminine shrewdness. He was in nowise offended. The women of his more intimate acquaintance did not scruple to bargain their charms. From such trollops, he gained his estimate of the sex. The sordid pretense by Plutina completed his delusion. The truckling of familiars had inflated conceit. He swelled visibly. The finest girl in the mountains was ready to drop into his arms! Passion drove him toward her.

Plutina raised her hand in an authoritative gesture. She could feign much, but to endure a caress from the creature was impossible. Somehow, by some secret force in the gesture, his advance was checked, he knew not why.

"Not now, Dan," she exclaimed, sharply. She added a lie, in extenuation of the refusal: "Alviry's in the house. Besides, I got to have time to think, like ye said. But I'll be at the gate t'-morrer."

Hodges accepted her decree amiably enough. He was still flattered by her complaisant attitude toward his wooing.

"Ye're talkin' sense, Plutiny--the kind I likes to hear. I'll be thar, waitin' fer ye, ye kin bet on thet." Then his natural truculence showed again in a parting admonition: "An' don't you-all try fer to play Dan Hodges fer a fool. If so be ye does, ye'll wish to God ye hadn't."

With the threat, he turned and went lumbering down the path, to vanish quickly within the shadows of the wood.




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