"
Hughie clung to her, one arm around her, and Flick's hard and impassive
face softened a little as he gazed at her. "Why, Pearl, what's the
matter?" he asked. "You look pale, and tears! Why, that ain't a mite
like you! Has he been cutting up rough," he glanced toward her father,
"and worrying you?"
"Why didn't you come before?" She lifted her shadowed eyes to his.
He winced a little, his mouth twisting slightly. "Ain't it enough that
I've come now?" Something in his voice conveyed even to her who had so
long taken his unwearying devotion without question and as a matter of
course what it had cost him to seek her again.
They had drawn near the cabin by this time and Flick looked at Gallito's
frowning face a moment. "Are you needing me, Pearl?" His drawling voice
was as lazily indifferent as ever, but his glance held an intimation of
danger for Gallito which the old man did not fail to understand.
"Maybe," Pearl replied in a low voice. "You 'most always come when I
need you, Bob."
"I guess your interference ain't needed now, Flick," began Gallito. "I
can--"
Hughie ran his hand caressingly down the old Spaniard's sleeve. "No need
to tell old Bob that we're a united family, Pop," he cried. "Why I'm
already composing a wedding march." He caught his adopted father's hand
in his.
At this mute expression of affection from the being who was nearest his
heart Gallito's face softened a little, although he gazed back at Bob
Flick with a baffled and still scornful smile.
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