Under what pretext, what secret reservation or evasion, had Gwinnan been able to evade this solemn declaration? Or had he adopted the simple expedient of swallowing it whole? Harshaw wondered, remembering all the acerbities of Gwinnan’s canvass and election, that the old story had not before come to light. But it was a section of frequent feuds and bloody collisions, the subject was trite and unsuggestive, and the details of an old fight might seem to promise no novel developments. How odd that he, of all men, should stumble on it, in view of its most signal significance!
Auxiliary facts pressed upon his attention. Nothing that could be now urged against an official was so prejudicial as the crime of dueling. The episode of Kinsard’s boyish demonstration attested the temper of the public. With much difficulty had his friends shielded him by its ambiguity; and indeed only because it was a meaningless folly, without intention or result, had it proved innocuous. Even Kinsard, fire-eater as he was, had been forced to accept their interpretations of its harmless intent, and to subside under the frown of public displeasure. The more lenient members of the House had had cause to regret their clemency, the disapproval of their constituents being expressed in no measured manner by the local journals. But no ambiguity was here; this was the accomplished fact, this the clue that long he had sought. Even if the House should decline to act in the matter, Gwinnan could be removed by judicial proceedings. He would think it out at his leisure. How lucky, how lucky was this ride!
The rain had ceased at last. They were among the minor ridges that lie about the base of the Great Smoky. They had ridden many a mile out of their way,—Harshaw could not say in what direction,—so that he might not easily retrace his steps. The mists still hung about them when they turned from the almost imperceptible path, which Jeb had followed with some keen instinct or memory, into a road,—a rough wagon track. Bushes were growing in its midst, bowlders lay here and there; its chief claim to identification as a highway being its occasional mud-puddles, of appalling depth and magnitude, and its red clay mire, fetlock deep at least.
Harshaw roused himself suddenly, as the two moonshiners intimated their intention of parting company with him.
“Thar’s yer way, stranger,” said Marvin, pausing on the rise and pointing down the road. It was visible only a few rods in the mist, dreary and deserted, with deep ditches, heavily washed by the rain, on either hand; it might seem to lead to no fair spaces, no favored destination where one might hope to be. But Harshaw drew up his mare, and gazed along it with kindling eyes. His felt hat drooped in picturesque curves about his dense yellow hair, soaked like his beard, to a darker hue. His closely buttoned coat had a military suggestion. His heavy figure was imposing on horseback. He flushed with sudden elation. Alack! he saw more trooping down that prosaic dirt road than the mist, hastily scurrying; than the progress of the wind in the swaying of the stunted cedars, clinging to the gashed and gully-washed embankments; than the last trickling stragglers of the storm.
He did not notice, or he did not care, that the two men had remarked his silence, his evident absorption. He glanced cursorily at them, as they sat regarding him,—one on the little lank mule, his partner on the big lean one, both drenched, and forlorn, and poverty-stricken, and humble of aspect. The politician’s mare, perhaps recognizing the road down into Kildeer County, where she had spent the first frisky years of her toilsome pilgrimage, showed a new spirit, and caracoled as Harshaw rode up to the two men to offer his hand.
“Farewell, stranger,” they said; and in the old-fashioned phrase of the primitive Plain People, “Farewell,” he replied.
They stood looking after him, hardly understanding what they lacked, what they had expected, as the mare, with a mincing, youthful freshness, cantered a little way along the grassy margin of the road, above the rivulets in the ditches, surging twelve or fourteen feet below.
Presently Harshaw paused, yet unobscured by the mist which had gathered about him, and glanced over his shoulder,—not to thank them for such aid and comfort as they had given him.