“Whar—whar’s Huldy?” she questioned before she would trust herself to believe. But Creed, full of the wonder of her message, dropped the mule’s bridle and came toward her his uninjured arm outstretched. He put the inquiry by almost impatiently.
“Huldah? She went on down to Hepzibah soon Saturday morning,” he said. “O Judith, did you mean it—that word you sent me by Little Buck?”
He came swiftly up to her, snatching her hand eagerly, pressing it hard against his breast, leaning close in the twilight to study her face.
“You couldn’t mean it,” he hurried on passionately, tremulously, “not now; you just pity me. Little Buck cried when he told me what you said, honey. He was jealous. But he needn’t have been—need he Judith? You just pity me.”
Creed’s manner and his words were instant reassurance to Judith’s womanly pride. But immediately on the relaxation of that pain rose clamouring her anxiety for his safety—his life.
“Yes, yes, Creed,” she murmured vehemently. “I did mean it—I sure meant every word of it. But we got to get right away from here. Do ye reckon ye can stand it to ride as far as the foot of the mountain? Ye got to go—and I’m here to take ye.”
They drew out of the path and into the deep blackness beneath the trees. There was but a hundredth chance that anybody would be passing here, or watching this point, yet that hundredth chance must be guarded against.
Poor Creed, he detained her, he clung to her hands hungrily, and invoked the sound of her voice. So much hate had daunted him, the strength and sweetness of her presence, the warm tenderness of her tones, were like balm to his lacerated spirit.
“I couldn’t go to-night—dear——” he faltered, abashed that the first word he uttered to her must be a denial. “You’re mighty sweet and good to offer to take me—I don’t know what I have ever done that you should risk this for me—but I’m to have a chance to talk to your Uncle Jephthah at moonrise to-night, and I can’t turn my back on that. He’s a fair-minded man and I’ll make this thing right yet.”
Judith shuddered. “Don’t you never believe it,” she urged in a panting whisper. “Uncle Jep hadn’t a thing on earth to do with that word goin’ to you. He’s left home. I can’t find him nowhars, or I’d have went straight to him and begged him to help me out when I found what the boys was aimin’ to do. Hit was Blatch planned it all. I tell ye Creed, Blatch Turrentine is alive—you never killed him when you flung him over the bluff—and while he lives you can’t stay here. He’s bound to kill ye.”