"Yes, I was there two days ago and saw your sister. She was well, but I think that the isolation wears on her, though she will not say so. She admits, however, that she misses you, and she and the Captain are planning a cruise among the islands. They are timing it for your spring vacation, confident you will join them."
"Oh," she said, and delight shone in her eyes, "you don't know how that tempts me; it's my favorite cruise."
"And you will arrange to go?"
She shook her head. "How can I? That short vacation means so much to me; I've planned it all away. Mose is going to clear a strip towards the river, for Colonel's pasture, and it must be big enough for the two Jerseys which Judge Kingsley is sending me. And I must furnish the cabin and take actual possession. But I don't know what to say to Louise. She doesn't know about this homestead, Mr. Stratton; I don't want her to know. You see it's all a venture; I might have to relinquish; I might—fail."
"I understand," he answered, again laughing, "and I promise to keep the secret from the Captain,—he can ridicule,—I promise, provided you go that cruise."
"I'm afraid I must." She shook her head again, ruffling her brows. "After all I ought to be able to spare this one week to my sister; she's going to think I'm forgetting her, often enough, before I'm through."
While they were talking a man had entered the clearing from the river side. He moved with a noiseless, sliding motion, and, seating himself at the lower end of the table, aloof from the children, who still loitered there, began unceremoniously to appease a prodigious appetite. Alice watched him in half recognition. His face in the strong light of midday was more than forbidding; it repelled while it also possessed the fascination of extreme ugliness. His old ragged hatbrim, turned back from a slanting forehead, left unshaded a pair of small, beadlike, shifting eyes. Suddenly she remembered where she had seen him before. It was at Laramie's cabin the time she had taken refuge from the storm. He was that midnight visitor, Smith.
None of the settlers gave him special attention, though Samantha filled his cup and Martha supplied him with an abundance of meat and bread. That was the unwritten code of the wilderness; no man was ever turned away hungry. And this man, though an escaped criminal, convicted of some crime against a remote Government, belonged to the community; as long as he respected its primitive laws he might come and go unmolested. But to pillage his neighbor—that was the unpardonable sin. And presently, at the moment of his departure, Smith crossed this line.
A short cruiser's ax, which young Thornton always carried in his belt over a new trail, was lying on a fallen tree directly in the outlaw's way. He was hampered by his gun, as he vaulted the log, but, by some sleight of hand, he slipped the ax under his blouse. Instantly there was a loud outcry, and before he could reach the cover of the jungle a cordon of settlers cut him off.
He swung about to break for the thicket at another point, but there the crowd closed. He stood motionless, weighing the odds, then he put his gun aside, setting the stock against a stump, and the ax reappeared, resting in the hollow of his arm. He caressed the edge of the blade lightly, with his long nervous fingers, and at the same time raised his shifting eyes to the owner, who confronted him. "A'm have some look at your ax, Mill," he said at last in a thick, choppy voice; "mebbe I lak to buy heem, ya-as, you want to sell heem, hey?"