And he pointed at the little sister, who was perched upon the wood-pile munching an Indian peach.
Somehow Birt did not accurately define the moral force which she had wielded, for he was untaught, and clumsy of speech, and could not translate his feelings. And Jube Perkins was hardly fitted to understand that subtle coercion of affection.
When he found that Birt would only reiterate that Tennie “kem along unbeknown an’ purvented” him, Jube Perkins gave up the effort at last, convinced of his guilt.
And Andy Byers said that he was not surprised, for he had known for some little time that Birt was a “most
mischievious
scamp.”
Only his mother believed in him, requiting his lack of confidence in her with a fervor of faith in him that, while it consoled, nevertheless cut him to the heart. It has been many years since then, for all this happened along in the fifties, but Birt has never forgotten how staunchly she upheld him in every thought when all the circumstances belied him. Now that misfortune had touched him, every trace of her caustic moods had disappeared; she was all gentleness and tenderness toward him. And day by day as he went to his work, meeting everywhere a short word, or a slighting look, he felt that he could not have borne up, save for the knowledge of that loyal heart at home.
He was momently in terror of arrest, and he often pondered on Nate’s uncharacteristic forbearance. Perhaps Nate was afraid that Birt’s story, told from the beginning in court, might constrain belief and affect the validity of the entry.
Birt vainly speculated, too, upon the strange disappearance of the grant. There it was in the pocket of the coat late that night, and the next morning early - gone!
Sometimes he suspected that Nate had only made a pretense of losing the grant, in order to accuse him and prejudice public opinion against him, so that he might not be believed should he claim the discovery of the mineral down the ravine.