“Waal, I wish ye war slartered now!” he broke out. “I’d jes’ ez lief listen ter that thar wolf conversin’ by the hour. What ails ye, Jeb, ter git set a-goin’ so all-fired lonesome an’ doleful?”
“Lord, nuthin’,” said Jeb amenably, from the van of the procession. “I ain’t lonesome nor doleful, nuther. When Mr. Harshaw ’lowed suthin’ ’bout my kemin’ ter see him on his farm, it jes’ reminded me sorter ez when I war young, afore my diff’unce with the governmint, I used ter be a powerful lively boy, an’ knowed plenty o’ folks, an’ went about mightily,—never lived like I does now. I war sorter o’ a vagrantin’ boy,—used ter consort with boys in the valley, an’ they’d kem up ter the cove an’ bide an’ go huntin’, an’ I’d go down ter thar farms; an’ that’s how it kem I knowed whar ye live on Owel Creek. Powerful good land some of it air,—mellow, rich sile; some cherty hillsides, though. None o’ them boys hev turned out like me. Why, I used ter know Jeemes Gwinnan ez well ez the road ter mill, an’ Jim’s a jedge a-gracin’ the bench, an’ I’m—a wolf!”
Harshaw experienced a sudden quickening of interest. “You knew Gwinnan?”
“Lord, yes; ez well ez the bark knows the tree. Jeemes war a fine shot, an’ he liked huntin’ fust-rate. He hedn’t his health very well, an’ his mother, bein’ a widder-woman, war more’n naterally foolish ’bout’n him, an’ war always lookin’ fur him ter die. So she’d keep him out’n doors ez well ez she could. But he’d kerry his book along, an’ read, ’thout he war a-huntin’. So she let him kem whenst he war jes’ a boy, an’ go huntin’ in the mountings along o’ the men growed. An’ it done him good. He war ez fine a shot ez I ever see.”
A wonderful thing was happening in the woods,—the familiar miracle of dawn. The vast forests were slowly asserting dim outlines of bole and branch, lodgment for the mist which clothed them in light and fleecy illusions of foliage. A gray revelation of light, rather the sheer values of distinctness than a realized medium, was unfolding before the eye. The serried slants of rain fell at wider intervals, and the equestrian form of Jeb became visible,—lank, lean, soaked with rain, his old white hat shedding the water from its brim in rivulets upon his straight and straggling hair. As he jogged along on the little mule, whose long ears seemed alternately to whisk off the shades of night, he seemed a forlornly inadequate individual to have had a “diff’unce with the governmint.”
“Jim’s what reminded me of how I war fixed in life,” he went on, more cheerfully. “An’ this hyar whole trip air what reminded me o’ Jim. I guided him—mus’ hev been fourteen year ago, or mo’—through jes’ sech a rainy night ez this, an’ through these hyar very woods—naw, sir! more towards the peak o’ Thunderhead.”
“I dunno ez ye hev got enny call ter be so durned pertic’lar ’bout the percise spot,” said Marvin, significantly.
“That’s a fac’,” said Jeb, good-naturedly. “I guided him through the mountings an’ over the line inter the old North State.”
“What in hell did he want to go there for, in the rain and the dead of the night?” asked Harshaw. His breath was quick; he felt that he panted on the brink of a discovery. Now plunge!
“’Kase, stranger, he war obleeged ter, sorter like you-uns,” said Jeb enigmatically.