"By gosh!" exclaimed Cheever, a sudden fear and wonder upon his face; "which one war smit?"
"'Twar Len Rhodes," his host began, but Mrs. Pettingill's wheeze, persistently sibilant, dominated even his louder tone.
"Don't you-uns be 'feared, Buck. Satan hisself didn't show up. He struck through Fee Guthrie's arm—a mighty survigrous one. Ye know the En'my hev got the name o' bein' toler'ble smart, an' he never made ch'ice o' a spindlin' arm."
Once more Mr. Pettingill resumed, overlooking what she had said: "An' so Mr. Shattuck hyar 'lowed the law would be down on us ef Mr. Rhodes didn't hev his own doctor-man—ez 'peared ter be the apple o' his eye! An' bein' ez my son war the groom, an' the 'casion war the infair, I couldn't send him off, an' I jes' axed Steve Yates ter go fur the doctor, an' go he did."
"An' go war all he did," interpolated Mrs. Pettingill; "he never kem back no mo'."
"I be powerful obligated ter him ez he never tuk my bay horse-critter along; sent him home with the saddle onter him an' all. I dun'no' but what I be s'prised. Ef he war mean enough ter desert his wife, he air plenty mean enough ter steal a horse."
Shattuck, who was lounging with a cigar in a big arm-chair, looked frowningly at the speaker. He had felt much distress that it should have been upon his insistence that the young man was despatched upon that errand whence he had never returned. He could hardly control his anxiety and forebodings while searching parties went forth; and so earnestly he hoped that no broken and bruised body would be found along the roadside, betokening a fatal fall from the saddle, no trace of robbery or foul deed resulting in death, that when public opinion settled upon the theory of Yates's desertion of his wife he experienced a great relief, a welcome sense of irresponsibility. And yet this was so keen and vivid that he could but reproach himself anew, since he so rejoiced because of the disaster that sealed her unhappiness. His spirits had recovered somewhat their normal tone, but nevertheless he could ill endure an allusion to his share in the circumstances that precipitated the event.
"How air she a-goin' ter git along?" demanded Cheever; a sufficiently uncharacteristic question, since his was not the type of practical mind that is wont to occupy itself with domestic ways and means. "Goin' back ter her own folks?"
"She 'lows she'd ruther die. She's goin' ter stay thar in her cabin an' wait fur him," said Mrs. Pettingill. "Sorter seems de-stressin', I do declar'! A purty, young, good, r'ligious 'oman a-settin' herself ter spen' a empty life a-waitin' fur Steve Yates ter kem back. He'll never kem. He's in Texas by now," she declared, hyperbolically; for Texas is the mountaineer's outremer. "Litt say she ain't never goin' ter git married," she continued, irrelevantly.
"How long d'ye reckon she'll stick ter that?" demanded old Pettingill, sourly, glancing up from under his grizzled eyebrows.