"_My soul! What if she--what if somebody else_----"
He sprang up as if something had stung him; recollected himself, with a startled glance around him; met the interested gaze of a Vassar freshman across the aisle; sat down and with a shrug of his broad shoulders settled into his reverie again. Nonsense! that kind of girl--there was only one of the kind--wouldn't forget in three years, nor in thirteen. That last look she gave him, standing at the gate--he paused, letting the thought of it curl warm about his heart, sent the blood pulsing up into his ears. Beautiful ears, the Vassar freshman thought; they were all she could see now over his coat collar, except the thick crop of hay-colored hair. Kitty used to say that when the Cyrus hay-crop failed they could fall back on Tom's hair, and then she would quote with her own delicious twinkle, "Good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow!"
If she had changed, Tom told himself severely, it could only be for the better. She was a woman now, his little girl: his little dancing gentlewoman of high quality. He hummed a tune between his teeth; whistled it; hummed it again. A quaint tune, with no special beginning or ending. A gentleman in the seat behind him became restive, shot irritated glances in his direction; was on the point of remonstrating when the tune ceased. The young man, glancing up, had caught a glimpse of himself in a wall mirror. Talk about change! what would Kitty say to him?
He stared straight into the wide-apart gray-blue eyes with their thick short lashes like a black fringe; noted the three deep lines ruled straight across the broad forehead; scrutinized the curious scar on the left cheek. "Well, you _are_ a show!" muttered Tom.
Of course he couldn't help the scar; well, he couldn't help any of it, for that matter; but she might like to know about the scar. They almost got him that time! It was rum, that particular tribe taking a round piece out of an enemy's cheek and stringing 'em on a necklace to hang round the joss's neck. Gee! that was a close shave! His eyes narrowed, seeing strange things through their thick lashes. A camp in a mountain pass, snowbound; food gone, water low. Lowering faces of yellow men, huddled round a fire, casting evil looks at the two, the white man and his faithful "boy," guarding the water skin. Then the rush, five against two; the daggers gleaming, the wild cries, the shots--how the echoes went battering back and forth between the rock walls! then the shriek, the fall--Tom shut his eyes, and drew a quick breath. He was a kindly man. It was an ugly sight, that figure pitching headlong over the edge, its yellow robes fluttering back like the wings of some great swooping bird--bah!