“Marry gal—I might of—done better—by ye. I cussed ye—knocked ye round—but I kep’ ye—safe. Snake nor no other—varmint never—got ye. I done the—best I—knowed how. I—I’m—a-goin’——”
A quiver ran from breast to lips. The arms went limp. The body relaxed.
Nigger Nat’s woman—primitive product of harsh hills, hard-bitten, hard-spoken, unmannered and unlovely, yet loyal to the last to her man and the waifs whom she had taken to her craggy heart—had laid down the burden of life and passed on.
CHAPTER XXX
THE CALL OF THE SOUTH
Brilliant morning sunlight flooded the dingy kitchen-dining-living-room of the Oaks house. Late though the season was, the southward-rising sun now lit up the interior more clearly than it ever had in mid-summer; for its slanting rays, instead of sinking into green ground and foliage, now ricocheted upward from a thin earth-blanket of snow.
That snow was two days old, and the latest of three light falls which had come since the night when Snake Sanders and his last victim passed out. The other two had speedily melted, and even this one had shrunk noticeably in an ensuing thaw. But to-day the air was keen and the white coverlet hard.
Snow and cold, however, meant little to the eight gathered in that room. In the cheery warmth radiating from the mud-colored old stove four of them crouched or lay in the sleepy contentment of full stomachs, while the other four sat pensively on chairs or sofa. The floor-hugging contingent comprised the Oaks felines—Spit and Spat and Fit and Fat. The folks above them were Marion, Steve, Douglas, and Uncle Eb.
Beside the outer door stood two guns—one, an old, rust-pitted muzzle-loader; the other a clean, graceful hammerless—and a blanket-pack, to which a smaller bundle had been lightly corded. To a contemplative eye those insensate things would have told a story of double trust: that, as the guns stood side by side, so would their owners stand shoulder to shoulder; and that the man who presently would carry that pack would bear also the light burden of a woman who had faith in him—for that small package was unmistakably a thin dress, within which probably were wrapped a few other articles of clothing.
“Wal,” barked Uncle Eb, shattering a thoughtful silence, “ye might say this was the endin’ an’ the beginnin’. Nat an’ ’Lizy an’ Snake an’ Lou are all into their graves, an’ them detective fellers are so long gone I ’most forgot they ever was into here, an’ Steve’s back onto his legs, an’ Marry an’ Hammerless are a-goin’ out. An’ that’s the endin’. But then ag’in, Steve’s a-comin’ to live ’long o’ me, an’ if old Ninety-Nine’s Mine ain’t lost ag’in by next spring we’ll see what we can make outen it; an’ Marry’s a-startin’ into that thar art-school ye told about, Hamp; an’ ye say ye’re a-goin’ to quit driftin’ round an’ git into a reg’lar business down to the city—sellin’ bonds, did ye say? An’ so that’s the beginnin’. Now all I’m bothered ’bout is how I’m a-goin’ to keep these cats to my house. They’ll run right back here, I bet ye.”
“When they see ther’ ain’t nothin’ to eat here they’ll come a-scootin’ up the hill ag’in, don’t worry,” predicted Steve, a saturnine smile crooking his pale mouth. “Ther’ won’t be nobody livin’ into here, ’less’n Marry gits homesick an’ wants to come back. Anybody else that tries movin’ in will move out ag’in quick’s I can git to him. Marry, don’t ye kind o’ hate to go?”