He
had stepped out of the ranks, and was performing strange manoeuvers
about a knothole that looked into the courting-box. When he saw Sandy
he opened fire.
"Look at her! Look at her!" he whispered. "Whenever I pass she talks
to Jimmy Reed on this side; but the moment she thinks I'm not looking,
sir, she talks to Nelson on the other! Kilday," he went on, shaking
his finger impressively, "that little girl is as slick as--a blame
Yankee! But she'll not outwit me. I'm going right up there and take
her home."
Sandy laughingly held his arm. It was not the first time the doctor
had confided in him. "No, no, doctor," he said; "I'll be the watch-dog
for ye. Let me go and stay with Annette, and if Carter Nelson gets a
word in her ear, it'll be because I've forgotten how to talk."
"Will you?" asked the doctor, anxiously. "Nelson's a drunkard. I'd
rather see my little girl dead than married to him. But she's wilful,
Kilday; when she was just a baby she'd sit with her little pink toes
curled up for an hour to keep me from putting on her shoes when she
wanted to go barefoot! She's a fighter," he added, with a gruff
chuckle that ended in a sigh, "but she's all I've got."
Sandy gripped him by the hand, then turned the corner into the
courting-box.
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