Thread in hand old Keziah lingered till Arley Kittridge came with his mother’s baking-pan and request for a little risin’. Arley it seemed had been commissioned to find out what he could on behalf of the Kittridge family. And so it went till breakfast-time.
How these things travel in a neighbourhood where there is no telephone, postman, milkman, nor morning paper, and where the distances are considerable, is one of the mysteries of the mountains—yet travel they do, and when time came for court to open Creed found that he had a crowd which would at any other juncture have been highly gratifying.
Every man that came in glanced first at the cut on his cheek, swiftly noted the pale face, sunken, purple-rimmed eyes, the scratched hands, then looked hastily away. Several made proffers of an alliance with him, being at outs with the Turrentines. All reiterated the story of the missing body.
“You done exactly right,” old Tubal Kittridge told him. “With a man like Blatchley Turrentine, hit’s hit first or git hit. I wonder he ever let ye git as far as Foeman’s Bluff; but if you made good use o’ yo’ time, I reckon you found out what you aimed to,” and he winked laboriously at poor Creed’s crimsoning countenance.
“I wasn’t trying to find out anything, Mr. Kittridge. Blatch forced the quarrel upon me. I was on my way home at the time.”
“Well, a lee-tle out of yo’ way, wasn’t ye?” objected Kittridge, slightly offended at not being offered Bonbright’s confidence.
The case on the docket, one that had interested Creed deeply, being the curious matter of a mountain creek which in the spring storms had changed its direction, scoured off a good field and flung it to the opposite side of the road, thus giving it to a new owner, dragged wearily. Who cared about the question of a few rods of mountain land, even if it had raised good tobacco, when the slayer of one of the bullies of the neighbourhood sat before them—a man who had not only killed his victim but had, within fifteen minutes, hidden all traces of the body—and the opening of a new feud was taking place before their eyes?
At noon Creed, in despair, adjourned his court, setting a new date for trial, explaining that this Turrentine matter ought to be looked into, and he believed it was not a proper day for him to be otherwise engaged. Then he sought old Tubal Kittridge.
“There’s something I want you to do for me,” he said.
“Shore—shore; anything in the world,” Kittridge agreed eagerly.