Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/92

82 shelter of that ostensible errand, and so he kept on asking. At last some one said in reply to his stereotyped question, "Why Hi?—Hi 's up in the Franklin tent at a big prayer-meetin' they 've got goin' on there. You might 's well give up all idee of gettin' hold of Hi Peet to-night. You 'll have to wait till morning. Hi 'll keep you over night fust rate; though I suppose they won't break up here till midnight."

This was precisely what John Bassett had in his own mind determined to do, but he replied with a diplomacy worthy of a deeper game:—

"Well, I call that pretty hard, to have to wait all night to get a horse shod, don't you?"

The man laughed, and answered:—

"Well, yes, I do. But you see, it 's just your luck that makes it happen so. They don't have camp-meetin' but once a year; and they don't have but one last night to each camp-meetin': an' you could n't ha' ketched Hi away from hum one o' the other three hundred an sixty-four nights; so you see it 's nothin' but your luck."

This curiously illogical logical speech made John laugh heartily, and a half shamed consciousness of the scarlet feather in his thoughts made him also flush a little as he replied:—

"Well, I don't believe in anything 's being luck." Just as he spoke these words, he heard a voice behind him, a voice of a quality such as he had never before heard. He did not turn his head. He