“Would it quiet your mind, Charley, if I was to promise to stick to ’em always, exactly as if they was my own?”
The great wave of relief that went over the white face on the pillow was sufficient answer, and Hilda looked to see her father get better at once; but what he said between labored breaths was:
“God bless you, Pearsall. I’m leaving nothing but debts—”
“’S all right, Charley—all right. They’s a-plenty—I’ll make it a-plenty. And God so deal with me as I deal by these children.”
It was like a solemn ceremony; the picture of it as such remained with Hilda in after life, vivid, ineffaceable. Her father on the bed, the sure knowledge of death in his eyes, Uncle Hank putting a brown hand over her own and Charley’s, the cowpunchers standing about like witnesses to the pact.
When it was done the father kissed them both. Hilda thought he was going to say something as he looked at her, but he rolled his head painfully on the pillow and murmured instead:
“Take them out, now—take them away. Poor things—poor little things—I don’t want them to remember—take them out, quick!”
They were hurried from the room. Shorty picked up Burch, and Bud McGregor led her. They were lingering forlornly outside the closed door when Uncle Hank opened it a few moments later, and said:
“You boys go with them to the bunk house.” He came fully into the hall and closed the door. “Hurry on with ’em—see about Miss Valeria as you go.”
And he turned back into Charley’s room, to sit by the young fellow’s couch while he passed in anguish down into the Valley of the Shadow, to reassure him in moments of respite from pain, with promises that the mortgages should be paid off, the children have education and opportunities.