“Steve!” he whispered loudly. “Where are you? Get into the hay! Quick!”
Again there was no sound. But movement came. Under a stair-flight leading aloft in the dimmest corner, something slipped cautiously into sight—first an ear, then a cheek, then a peeping eye. It hung there, waist-high, watching the man go squinting into the stalls and around him.
“Steve! This is Hamp! Uncle Eb says——”
“Awright!”
The whispered reply, hoarse and penetrating, cut short his speech and turned him stairward. The eye became two, and the face rose as if the concealed youth were getting up from his knees.
“What’s he say?” demanded Steve.
“Get into the hay! Two bulls are here—in the house—may come here any minute—get under cover quick.”
“Uh-huh.” Steve darted forth. “I seen ’em. Figgered I better hide into this ’ere hole an’ mebbe duck out if they went up ’bove. Would of skipped outen here, but the side house-winder looks right to the barn an’ I ’spicioned they’d see me.”
He was already on his way upward. Douglas followed close behind. They emerged into a small hay-loft, crammed with the season’s crop of horse-fodder. At each end, high up in the peak but now level with the piled hay, a small window let in light. In that light the two stood an instant looking at each other.
Though the desperate look of the hunted still was on the fugitive’s face, he looked far better than when Douglas had carried him into the den among the bowlders. Then he had been wan, pinched, utterly exhausted. Now his cheeks were more round, his eyes unrimmed by blue crescents, his swarthy skin tinged by healthy color. Food and sleep in plenty had transformed him from a hatchet-faced wreck to a not unhandsome young man. But the hard set of the mouth and the glitter of the dark eyes still were there.