“Who’s with him?” asked Jephthah, turning methodically back into the room for the squirrel gun over the door.
“Nobody. He ain’t got no rifle. I reckon he’s packin’ a pistol, though, of course. Nancy Cyard bawled an’ took on considerable when he started. Shall I call the boys?”
“No,” returned Jephthah briefly, replacing the clean brown rifle on its fir pegs. “No, I don’t need nobody, and I don’t need Old Sister. I reckon I can deal with one young feller alone.”
He walked unhurriedly toward the main house. Stribling stood looking after him a moment, uncertainly. The spy’s errand was performed. He had now his dismissal; it would not do to be seen about the place at this time. He went reluctantly back to the waiting filly, mounted and turned her head toward a high point that commanded the big road for some distance. A little later Jephthah Turrentine sat in the open threshing-floor porch of the main house smoking, Judith within was busy looking over and washing a mess of Indian lettuce and sissles in a piggin, when Creed rode into the yard.
The ancient hound thumped twice with a languid tail on the floor; Judith, back in her kitchen, stayed her hand, and stared out at the newcomer with parted lips which the blood forsook; Jephthah’s inscrutable black eyes rose to Creed’s face and rested there; nothing but that aspect, pale, desolate, ravaged, the strip of plaster running from brow to cheek, marked the difference between this visit and any other.
Yet the old house seemed to crouch close, to regard him askance from under lowering eyes, as though through all its timbers ran the message that the enemy was here.
“Good morning,” he hailed.
“Howdy. ’Light—’light and come in,” Jephthah adjured him, without rising, “I’m proud to see ye.”
His own countenance was worn and haggard with sleeplessness and anxiety, but with the mountaineer’s dignified reticence he passively ignored the fact, assuming a detached manner of mild jocularity.
Creed, under inspection from six pairs of eyes, though there was only one individual visible to him, got from his mule, tethered the animal, and came and seated himself on the porch edge.