Since the day on which Ola had bidden her strange reproachful adieu to Lance's empty room, no one had seen her on Turkey Track, though it was reported that she was staying with kin no further away than Hepzibah.
"It is Ola," said Callista, as the rider of the black filly came nearer. "And she—she's got my baby! O Lord! What now?"
For a moment the astonishment of it dulled the agony of rebellion which once more surged in Callista's soul as she looked at that chimney through the trees and knew that there by its hearthstone were the sheriff and his men ready to take Lance from her.
"I come a-past the Gentry place and stopped to git the boy," Ola called, as soon as she could make them hear.
It occurred to Callista that this girl, too, supposed that Lance would try to escape, and that they would wish to take the baby with them.
"Sheriff Beason and his men are in yon," Lance told Ola, glancing in the direction of his father's house. "I'm going to my own place to give myself up—they're coming up there for me."
Ola nodded, without making any immediate reply. She looked with curious questioning from husband to wife, shifting the baby to her hip.
"My, but he's solid," she said enviously, the aboriginal 391 mother-woman showing strong in her ugly little brown face.
"I'll take him," Callista murmured, putting out her arms almost mechanically.
But Ola made no movement to hand over the baby. She yet sat her horse, glancing from one countenance to the other.