It was the little sister who had followed him to-night, as she always did when she could.
“Stand back thar, Tennessee!” he faltered.
He was trembling from head to foot. And yet Tennessee was far too young to tell that she had seen the grant in his hands, to understand, even to question. But had he been seized by the whole Griggs tribe, he could not have been so panic-stricken as he was by the sight of that unknowing little head, the touch of the chubby little hand on his knee.
He thrust the grant back into the pocket of Nate’s coat. His resolve was routed by the presence of love and innocence. Not here - not now could he be vindictive, malicious. With some urgent, inborn impulse strongly constraining him, he caught the little sister in his arms, and fled headlong through the darkness, homeward.
As he went he was amazed that he should have contemplated this revenge.
“Why, I can’t afford ter be a scoundrel an’ sech, jes’ ’kase Nate Griggs air a tricky feller an’ hev fooled me. Ef Tennessee hedn’t stepped up so powerful peart I moughtn’t hev come ter my senses in time. I mought hev tore up Nate’s grant by now. But arter this I ain’t never goin’ ter set out ter act like a scamp jes’ ’kase somebody else does.”
His conscience had prevailed, his better self returned. And when he reached home, and opening the door saw his mother still nodding over her knitting, and Rufe asleep in his chair, and the fire smouldering on the hearth, all as he had left it, he might have thought that he had dreamed the temptation and his rescue, but for his dripping garments and Tennessee in his arms all soaking with the rain.
The noise of his entrance roused his mother, who stared in drowsy astonishment at the bedraggled apparition on the threshold.
“Tennie follered me ter the tanyard ’fore I fund her out,” Birt explained. “It ’pears ter hev rained on her, considerable,” he added deprecatingly.
Tennie was looking eagerly over her shoulder to note the effect of this statement. Her streaming hair flirted drops of water on the floor; her cheeks were ruddy; her black eyes brightened with apprehension.