“What does he think of Baumberger? Is he going to let him take the case and handle it to please himself?” Good Indian was tapping his boot-toe thoughtfully upon the bottom step, and glancing up now and then as a precaution against being overheard.
“I guess so,” she admitted, answering the last question first. “I haven't had a real good chance to talk to Thomas all day. Baumberger has been with him most of the time. But I guess he is; anyway, Baumberger seems to take it for granted he's got the case. Thomas hates to hurt anybody's feelings, and, even if he didn't want him, he'd hate to say so. But he's as good a lawyer as any, I guess. And Thomas seems to like him well enough. Thomas,” she reminded Good Indian unnecessarily, “never does say much about anything.”
“I'd like to get a chance to talk to him,” Good Indian observed. “I'll have to just lead him off somewhere by main strength, I guess. Baumberger sticks to him like a bur to a dog's tail. What are those fellows doing down there now? Does anybody know?”
“You heard what he said to me just now,” Phoebe said, impatiently. “He don't want anybody to go near. It's terribly aggravating,” she confessed dispiritedly, “to have a lot of ruffians camped down, cool as you please, on your own ranch, and not be allowed to drive 'em off. I don't wonder the boys are all sulky. If Baumberger wasn't here at all, I guess we'd have got rid of 'em before now. I don't know as I think very much of lawyers, anyhow. I believe I'd a good deal rather fight first and go, to law about it afterward if I had to. But Thomas is so--CALM!”
“I think I'll go down and have a look,” said Good Indian suddenly. “I'm not under Baumberger's orders, if the rest of the bunch is. And I wish you'd tell Peaceful I want to talk to him, Mother Hart--will you? Tell him to ditch his guardian angel somehow. I'd like to see him on the quiet if I can, but if I can't--”
“Can't be nice, and forgiving, and repentant, and--a dear?” Evadna had crept over to him by way of the rocks behind the pond, and at every pause in her questioning she pushed him forward by his two shoulders. “I'm so furious I could beat you! What do you mean, savage, by letting a lady stay all afternoon by herself, waiting for you to come and coax her into being nice to you? Don't you know I H-A-ATE you?” She had him by the ears, then, pulling his head erratically from side to side, and she finished by giving each ear a little slap and laid her arms around his neck. “Please don't look at me that way, Aunt Phoebe,” she said, when she discovered her there inside the door. “Here's a horrible young villain who doesn't know how to behave, and makes me do all the making up. I don't like him one bit, and I just came to tell him so and be done. And I don't suppose,” she added, holding her two hands tightly over his mouth, “he has a word to say for himself.”