“God knows I don’t blame ye, Nancy,” muttered the old man in his beard, as the heavy door was dragged shut, and the bar dropped into place. Then he advanced upon the men at the palings.
At Jephthah’s first appearance the tallest of these had dropped swiftly back into the shadows on the other side of the road and was gone. Unsupported, the four or five who were left shuffled uneasily, beneath the old man’s fierce eye.
“Where’s Pone Cyard?” he demanded.
“We hain’t tetched him, pap. We never seed him. We said that to draw ’em.”
“Huh!” ejaculated Jephthah, as though further comment were beyond him. “Git yo’ ridin’ critters,” he gave the short, sharp order. “Fetch Pete to me.” And he whirled his back, and stalked out into the main road.
A hundred yards or so up, there was a sound of hoofs and tearing bushes, as the boys came through the greenery with their mules. Pete was led up and the bridle-rein presented in meek silence. By the dim, presaging light of the little waning moon, delaying somewhere down below the shoulder of Big Turkey Track, old Jephthah took it, set foot in stirrup, and made ready to swing to saddle. Then he slowly withdrew the foot and turned back.
“Take them cussed rags off o’ yo’ faces!” he burst out in a fury of contempt. “Now. Who laid out this night’s work? Well, speak up—how come it?”
Dead silence answered. Of the three who faced him not one—lacking the leader who had skulked away at Jephthah’s approach—could have explained just why he was there. And none of them would betray the man who had led them there and left them to answer as best they might for their actions to the head of the tribe.
“Uh-huh, I thort so,” nodded the old man bitterly, as they yet stood mute. “Ain’t got a word to say for yo’selves. No, and they ain’t a word to be said. Yo’ sons in my house. I was thar—I was standin’ with ye about this business. Why couldn’t this be named to me? What call had ye to sneak around me—to make a fool o’ me, an’ shame me?”
He waited. Receiving no response, he concluded as he got to the mule’s back,