“Waal, you-uns kin make it, I’ll be bound,” she said.
And he believed her.
As he rose from the table, at the conclusion of the meal, he took out his purse.
“Nare cent,” said Marvin hastily. “We-uns hev been obligated by yer comp’ny, an’ air powerful pleased ter part in peace.”
Harshaw insisted, however, on leaving his knife for Philetus, and expressed regret that one of the blades was broken.
“He can’t cut hisself with that un, nohow,” said the anxious mother, in graciously accepting it.
Harshaw divined that she might have valued it more if all the blades had been in like plight. She placed it carefully on the high mantelpiece, where, it was safe to say, Philetus would not for some years be able to attain it.
Harshaw never forgot that ride. As the light flickered out from the door into the black midnight, vaguely crossed with slanting lines of rain, to the rail-fence where his mare stood, saddled, the pistols in the holster, he experienced an added sense of confidence in his own methods and capacities, and an intense elation that so serious an adventure had terminated with so little injury.
When he was in the saddle he looked back at the little house, crouching in the infinite gloom of the night and the vast forests that overhang it, with no fierce recollection of his trepidation, of his deadly and imminent peril. In conducting himself with due regard for the representations he had made, his mental attitude had in some sort adapted itself to his manner, and he felt as unconcerned, as easy, as friendly, as he looked. He hallooed back a genial adieu to the household standing in the doorway, in the flare of the fire. Philetus, roused by the noise to the sense of passing events, appeared in the midst, rubbing his eyes with both hands. The group gave the guest godspeed, the dogs wagged their tails. As Harshaw rode out of the inclosure, the vista of the room seemed some brilliant yellow shaft sunk in the dense darkness. And then he could see nothing: the rain fell in the midst of the black night; he felt it on his hands, his face, his neck; he turned up the collar of his coat; he heard the hoofs of his mare splashing in the puddles, and he marveled how the beast could see or follow Jeb, who, mounted on the smaller of Marvin’s two mules, led the way, while Marvin himself brought up the rear. He could only trust to the superior vision of the animal, and adjust himself to the motion which indicated the character of the ground they traversed: now through tangles and amongst rocks; now coming almost to a halt, as the mare stepped over the fallen bole of a tree; now a sudden jump, clearing unseen obstructions; now down hill, now up; now through the rushing floods of a mountain torrent. Harshaw’s buoyant mood maintained itself; his bluff voice sounded in the midst of the dreary rainfall, and his resonant, gurgling laugh over and again rang along the dark, wintry fastnesses. His geniality was communicated to the other men, and the conversation carried on at long range was animated and amicable.
“I wonder what’s become of those scamps I was hunting with,” he remarked. “I just know that shed of pine branches they fixed has leaked on ’em this night. I’ll bet they’re wallowin’ in mud.” He experienced a certain satisfaction in the thought. They had not been so badly scared as he, but at all events the camp hunters could not be happy under these circumstances.