The child nodded her head vigorously, and a moment later the shapeless small figure started worming its way up along the obscuring row of bushes. Finally she stopped on the doorstone of that cabin where she could hear the "thump-a-chug" of Callista's loom. She well remembered that the last time she was over here her Aunt Callie had entertained her in that building, refusing to come out and see her mother. Unacquainted with any such ceremonial as knocking, incapable of achieving the customary "hello," she planted herself on the doorstep and remarked gruffly,
"Huh!"
The sound did not amount to much as a hail or an alarum, yet it reached the ear of the woman who sat at the loom inside working, with what strange thoughts as her companions it were hard to guess. Somehow, it was now known all over both Turkey Track neighborhoods that Lance had killed his man and fled, and that the sheriff and posse were out after him. The face that bent 351 over the web of rag carpet was sharpened and bleached by this knowledge. The blue eyes gleamed bright with it. When that curious, gruff little "huh" came to her ears, Callista stopped her work like a shot and stood long hearkening.
"Hit was nothing," she told herself, half-scornfully. "I'm just scared, and listenin' for something."
She started the treadle again, and the noise of the batten once more checked the silence into a rhythmic measure. But the dogs had become aware of an intruder. Rousing from their snug quarters under the porch of the big log house, they came baying across the frozen ground. At their outburst of clamor, almost with one motion, Callista stopped the loom a second time, turned out her lamp, and was at the door, drawing it open with a swift, yet cautious movement. There in the vague starlight was Mary Ann Martha backed up against it, shaking a small and inadequate stick at the approaching pack. Swiftly Callista caught the little thing and pulled her inside, closed the door and dropped the bar across. She stooped to the child in the uncertain shine of the fire, questioning in amazement,
"Why, Mary Ann Martha! How on earth did you get here—all alone—at night this-a-way?"
"Thest walked," returned the ambassador briefly. "Aunt Callie," 352 she embarked promptly and sturdily upon her narrative, "they's somebody down at the corner of the chicken-house that wants to have speech with you. Don't you tell nobody, and you thest come along o' me and be Injuns, and don't make no noise, an' slip down thar in the shadder o' the bubby bushes, like I done, so nobody cain't see."
Faithful to her trust, Mary Ann Martha the outrageous, the terror of Little Turkey Track, had delivered the entire message without an error. Callista's mind was a turmoil of wild surmise. Who could the "somebody" waiting for her out there be—somebody who arranged all these precautions with such care and exactness? She gave but one glance at the sleeping baby on her bed, caught a heavy shawl from its peg, and, winding it about her head and shoulders, slipped soundlessly from the door, holding Mary Ann Martha's hand. Not a word was spoken between them. When they finally entered the area darkened by the chicken-house, Callista started and her eyes widened mutely at the touch of a hand on her arm.
"H-ssh—Callisty!" came Roxy Griever's thin, scared tones, just above a whisper. "God knows who might be a-watchin' and a-listenin'."
Callista faced about on the older woman staring with sharp inquiry at her in the gloom. Lance's wife found it hard to guess what attitude would be her sister-in-law's now.