A little later, with Marion standing near her in the room, the light from the kerosene-lamp streaming upon them through the shattered door, Martha was speaking rapidly:
“He acted mighty suspicious, honey; an’ he’s up to some dog’s trick, shuah as you’m alive. You got to git out of heah, honey—mighty quick! ‘Pears he thinks you is hid somewhares around heah, an’ he’s figgerin’ on makin’ you stay heah. An’ if you wants to git away, you’s got to walk, for he’s took the hosses!” She shook her head, her eyes wide with a reflection of the complete stupefaction that had descended upon her. “Laws A’mighty, what a ragin’ devil that man is, honey! I’se seen men an’ men—an’ I knowed a nigger once that was——”
But Martha paused, for Marion was paying no attention to her. The girl was pulling some articles of wearing apparel from some drawers, packing them hurriedly into a small handbag, and Martha sprang quickly to help her, divining what the girl intended to do.
“That’s right, honey; doan you stay heah in this house another minit! You git out as quick as you kin. You go right over to that Squint man’s house an’ tell him to protect you. ’Cause you’s goin’ to need protection, honey—an’ don’t you forgit it!”
The girl’s white face was an eloquent sign of her conception of the danger that confronted her. But she spoke no word while packing her handbag. When she was ready she turned to the door, to confront Martha, who also carried a satchel. Together the two went out of the house, crossed the level surrounding it, and began to descend the long slope that led down into the mighty basin in which, some hours before, the girl had seen the pin-point of light glimmering across the sea of darkness toward her. And toward that light, as toward a beacon that promised a haven from a storm, she went, Martha following.
From a window of the house a man watched them—Parsons—in the grip of a paralyzing terror, his pallid face pressed tightly against the glass of the window as he watched until he could see them no longer.
CHAPTER XVII—THE WRONG ANKLE
Bud Hemmingway, the tall, red-faced young puncher who had assisted Quinton Taylor in the sprained-ankle deception, saw the dawn breaking through one of the windows of the bunkhouse when he suddenly opened his eyes after dreaming of steaming flapjacks soaked in the sirup he liked best. He stretched out on his back in the wall-bunk and licked his lips.
“Lordy, I’m hungry!”
But he decided to rest for a few minutes while he considered the cook—away with the outfit to a distant corner of the range.