She stared at him, her eyes wide as she thought about what he had said ; ;

His wife had said to him: `` Nellie is in love with Clayton Roy.

`` You're Gavin's son '', Joe Purvis had said.

She said, and her tone had softened until it was almost friendly.

Six hundred and forty acres, the old man back in St. Louis had said ; ;

I had always, I said, hankered after working hard with my hands.

`` It's Curtiss '', he said, naming the man Rankin had hit.

Even as he said it, Greg knew they had found the enemy.

An Ah coudn ansuh him an so Ah said ' Aw right, Ah gay-ess, an his fathuh didn uttuh one wohd an aftuh Huhmun was gone, the majuh laughed an tole me thet he an the bawh had been hevin an occasional drink t'gethuh f'ovuh a yeah, onleh an occasional one, but just the same it was behahn mah back, an Ah doan think thet's nahce at all, d'you ''??

Sometimes I wondered vaguely what he did about women for my Aunt, by blood, had died some years ago, but neither of us said anything.

`` Dear girl '', Walter had finally said, `` he writes me that he is sleeping in the English Gardens ''.

Mary Jane had smilingly said.

There had been classroom guffaws which quickly subsided as Professor Griggs said dryly: `` I see your point, Pauson.

The pretty little twittering WACS said he had the look of eagles -- and Penny, hating the cliche, had to admit that in this case it applied.

`` Hi there, Schaffner '', he had said.

Waddell had heard that he had been a commando in Rommel's Afrika Corps, and he said to himself: I'd hate to run into him in the desert on a dark night.

Aloud he had said, making conversation:

`` Yes '', Herr Schaffner had said.

`` Thank you '', the German had said courteously.

His superiors had said that all marines were depraved.

He could think of nothing else save his mental image of her nude figure and what Charles had said that morning about Margaret Rider.

Occasionally he would look across the aisle at Margaret, fourteen and demure in a fresh green organdy dress, sitting in the sixth-grade row, and he could hardly believe she would do what Charles had said she did.

At noontime, remembering what the teacher had said about maybe playing with the kids, Jack stayed close to the schoolhouse while all the other big boys, except Charles, went off out the road to play ball.

Any lingering suspicion that this was a trick Al Budd had thought up was dispelled.

Both had blonde hair and blue eyes, and there was even a faint similarity of features.

There was more to this than Jones had told him.

He was thinking of Rittenhouse and how he had left him there, to rock to death on the porch of the Splendide.

The silence oppressed him, made him bend low over the horse's neck as if to hide from a wind that had begun to blow far away and was twisting slowly through the darkness in its slow search.

It was the night Clayton had tricked them in the poker game.

He knew who was riding after him -- the men he had known all his life, the men who had worked for him, sworn their loyalty to him.

The land over which he sped was the land he had created and lived in: his valley.

The Gap looming before him -- the place where had confronted Jack English on that day so many years ago -- was his exit from all that had meaning to him.

He was thinking that the way she had responded to his own kiss hadn't meant what he had believed it had.

He might tell her how sorry a spectacle she was making of herself, pretending to be blind to the way Julia Fortune had taken Dean's affections from her.

His looting of the orderly room had taken only a minute or two and the vicinity was still clear of guerrillas.

At the same moment Wheeler Fiske fired the rifle Mike had given him and another guerrilla was hit.

The bullet had torn through the flesh just above the knee, inflicting an ugly gash that was forming a pool of blood on the floor.

In the brief moment I had to talk to them before I took my post on the ring of defenses, I indicated I was sickened by the methods men employed to live and trade on the river.

Next to him was a young boy I was sure had sat near me at one of the trading sessions.

The war captain had been badly wounded and was fighting to hold his seat.

She had picked up the quirt and was twirling it around her wrist and smiling at him.