SON OF THE WIND
There had been anxiety in the girl's look then and now there was a brightening as she waved her hand. The creature threw high both of his, streaked with earth; then began to come with bounds upward, through the trees. Like a large dog, foolish with the joy of seeing his master, he came straight toward her as though he would have flung her over, but, instead, flung himself upon her and falling on his knees, clasped his arms around her waist, and hung there, dropping back his head to look up worshipfully.
Laughing she put her hands on his arms. Thus she might have laid them on the dog's head. But Carron was quick. He seized the boy's wrists. The creature clung fast with a cry. He gave Carron an upward look, the dull, glazed eye of fury; but the man unlocked his fingers with a hard twist and plucking him off as if he had been a slug, tossed him backward, until he rolled a little down the hill.
"What are you doing?" she cried. "What is the matter?"
"Don't let him touch you again!" Carron could hardly speak. The sight of the half-witted thing hanging upon her thickened his tongue and sent the red sparks before his eyes.
The boy was picking himself up, dazed and terrified, from the ground. "You have hurt him!" she
246
