A roughly-clad, heavily-bearded man turned hastily at the same moment.

“Hullo,” he said gruffly.

“H’ are you, Metzar. I just dropped in to see if I could make a trade for your sorrel mare,” replied Jonathan. Being well aware that the innkeeper would not part with his horse, the borderman had made this announcement as his reason for entering the bar-room.

“Nope, I’ll allow you can’t,” replied Metzar.

As he turned to go, Jonathan’s eyes roamed around the bar-room. Several strangers of shiftless aspect bleared at him.

“They wouldn’t steal a pumpkin,” muttered Jonathan to himself as he left the inn. Then he added suspiciously, “Metzar was talkin’ to some one, an’ ‘peared uneasy. I never liked Metzar. He’ll bear watchin’.”

The borderman passed on down the path thinking of what he had heard against Metzar. The colonel had said that the man was prosperous for an innkeeper who took pelts, grain or meat in exchange for rum. The village gossips disliked him because he was unmarried, taciturn, and did not care for their company. Jonathan reflected also on the fact that Indians were frequently coming to the inn, and this made him distrustful of the proprietor. It was true that Colonel Zane had red-skinned visitors, but there was always good reason for their coming. Jonathan had seen, during the Revolution, more than one trusted man proven to be a traitor, and the conviction settled upon him that some quiet scouting would show up the innkeeper as aiding the horse-thieves if not actually in league with them.

“Good evening, Jonathan Zane.”

This greeting in a woman’s clear voice brought Jonathan out from his reveries. He glanced up to see Helen Sheppard standing in the doorway of her father’s cabin.

“Evenin’, miss,” he said with a bow, and would have passed on.

“Wait,” she cried, and stepped out of the door.

He waited by the gate with a manner which showed that such a summons was novel to him.

Helen, piqued at his curt greeting, had asked him to wait without any idea of what she would say. Coming slowly down the path she felt again a subtle awe of this borderman. Regretting her impulsiveness, she lost confidence.

Gaining the gate she looked up intending to speak; but was unable to do so as she saw how cold and grave was his face, and how piercing were his eyes. She flushed slightly, and then, conscious of an embarrassment new and strange to her, blushed rosy red, making, as it seemed to her, a stupid remark about the sunset. When he took her words literally, and said the sunset was fine, she felt guilty of deceitfulness. Whatever Helen’s faults, and they were many, she was honest, and because of not having looked at the sunset, but only wanting him to see her as did other men, the innocent ruse suddenly appeared mean and trifling.

Then, with a woman’s quick intuition, she understood that coquetries were lost on this borderman, and, with a smile, got the better of her embarrassment and humiliation by telling the truth.

“I wanted to ask a favor of you, and I’m a little afraid.”

She spoke with girlish shyness, which increased as he stared at her.

“Why—why do you look at me so?”

“There’s a lake over yonder which the Shawnees say is haunted by a woman they killed,” he replied quietly. “You’d do for her spirit, so white an’ beautiful in the silver moonlight.”

“So my white dress makes me look ghostly,” she answered lightly, though deeply conscious of surprise and pleasure at such an unexpected reply from him. This borderman might be full of surprises. “Such a time as I had bringing my dresses out here! I don’t know when I can wear them. This is the simplest one.”

“An’ it’s mighty new an’ bewilderin’ for the border,” he replied with a smile in his eyes.

“When these are gone I’ll get no more except linsey ones,” she said brightly, yet her eyes shone with a wistful uncertainty of the future.

“Will you be happy here?”

“I am happy. I have always wanted to be of some use in the world. I assure you, Master Zane, I am not the butterfly I seem. I have worked hard all day, that is, until your sister Betty came over. All the girls have helped me fix up the cabin until it’s more comfortable than I ever dreamed one could be on the frontier. Father is well content here, and that makes me happy. I haven’t had time for forebodings. The young men of Fort Henry have been—well, attentive; in fact, they’ve been here all the time.”

She laughed a little at this last remark, and looked demurely at him.

“It’s a frontier custom,” he said.

“Oh, indeed? Do all the young men call often and stay late?”

“They do.”

“You didn’t,” she retorted. “You’re the only one who hasn’t been to see me.”

“I do not wait on the girls,” he replied with a grave smile.

“Oh, you don’t? Do you expect them to wait on you?” she asked, feeling, now she had made this silent man talk, once more at her ease.

“I am a borderman,” replied Jonathan.