"Sun in your eyes?" asked Keating, lifting his hat, so as to shield the
other's face.
"Yes."
When he looked again, both figures were gone. He made up his mind that he
would think of the only other person who could absorb his attention, at
least for a time; very soon he would stand face to face with the six feet
of brawn and intelligence and manhood that was young Fisbee.
"You are sure he is there?" he asked Tom Martin.
"Yes," answered Martin, with no need to inquire whom the editor meant. "I
reckon," he continued, solemnly, peering at the other from under his rusty
hat-brim, "I reckon when you see him, maybe you'll want to put a kind of
codicil to that deed to the 'Herald.'"
"How's that, Martin?"
"Why, I guess maybe you'll--well, wait till you see him."
"I don't want to wait much longer, when I remember what I owe him and how
I have used him, and that I have been here nearly three hours without
seeing him."
As they neared the brick house Harkless made out, through the trees, a
retreative flutter of skirts on the porch, and the thought crossed his
mind that Minnie had flown indoors to give some final directions toward
the preparation of the banquet; but when the barouche halted at the gate,
he was surprised to see her waving to him from the steps, while Tom
Meredith and Mr. Bence and Mr. Boswell formed a little court around her.
Lige Willetts rode up on horse back at the same moment, and the judge was
waiting in front of the gate. Harkless stepped out of the barouche and
took his hand.
"I was told young Fisbee was here."
"Young Fisbee is here," said the judge.
"Where, please, Briscoe?"
"Want to see him right off?"
"I do, very much."
"You'll withdraw his discharge, I expect, now?"
"Ah!" exclaimed the other. "I want to make him a present of the 'Herald,'
if he'll take it." He fumed to Meredith, who had come to the gate. "Tom,
where is he?"
Meredith put his hand on his friend's shoulder, and answered: "I don't
know. God bless you, old fellow!"
"The truth is," said the judge, as they entered the gate, "that when you
drove up, young Fisbee ran into the house. Minnie--" He turned, but his
daughter had disappeared; however, she came to the door, a moment later,
and shook her head mysteriously at her father.