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 there in Texas buying up stuff, and not a minute before."

"I expect that's so."

"That note was outlawed years ago, even if it never was paid."

"I haven't got a bit of doubt of it, Miss Louise."

"I wanted to yell at you when you handed the note to the judge, but it happened so unexpectedly, and was done so quickly, I couldn't get my breath to say a word."

"You knew it wouldn't have been right to try to turn me from a little act of plain honesty," Tom said, looking into her eyes with as much tender admiration as if she had done something to deserve it. "It was Colonel Withers's property; it wasn't cancelled, it wasn't crossed out and marked paid. It was as much his, in the face of any proof I could bring to show it had been paid off, as the money in that sack belonged to the bank. What would you have thought of me if I'd headed on south with that, in place of comin' back?"

"That's something different, altogether different," she insisted.

"It's just the same to me," said Tom.

Tom looked out at Myron, hacking away at the big weeds with his scythe, leaving a green confusion behind him. There was a cloud of sadness in Tom's face, as if he felt himself suddenly bereft, and left without consolation in an unfriendly land.

Louise reached over and touched his arm. The heat of indignation had subsided out of her face. She was