"Put up yor pistol, ye darned idjit!" exclaimed Derridge, the disciple of reason. "Don't ye know a squeech-owel whenst ye hear one? Ye must be plumb sodden in Pettingill whiskey."
Cheever, with a half-articulate oath, sank back upon the saddle upon which he half lay and half sat, and presently evolved an excuse for his nervousness. He had something too in his face that implied a doubt, a need of support, a wish for counsel.
"That gal at Yates's, I mean Litt Pettingill, sorter purtended ez she b'lieved ez I knowed o' Steve's wharabouts. Now Steve's welcome to shelter with we-uns. But I'd hate it powerful ef jes' 'kase he fell in with we-uns that night ez he war a-goin' fur the doctor ter patch Len Rhodes's head, 'twar ter be the means o' draggin' the law down on we-uns, an' gittin' it onto our trail."
"Ye mus' hev said suthin'. She couldn't jes' hev drawed the idee out'n nuthin'," reasoned the deep bass voice of Derridge, who wore a severe and reprehensive frown. "Ye air a smart man, Buck, an' I ain't denyin' it none, but whenst a man talks ez much ez you-uns he can't gin keerful heed ter all his words, an' ye mus' hev said suthin' ez gin her a hint. Folks kin talk too much, specially whenst they set up ter be smart." He was a silent man himself, and was accounted slow.
Cheever sneered. "Ye air powerful brigaty ter-night. I reckon I be ekal ter keepin' a secret from enny gal folks. Leastwise I hev knowed a power o' secrets an' cornsider'ble gal folks. An' they never got tergether ez I ever hearn tell on."
This was logic, and it silenced his interlocutor. They all sat musing for a time, while the smoke mounted into the lofty dome of the niche, and the fire leaped fitfully, casting its flicker on all their faces, and the whole interior, a dull red and a dusky brown, seemed a discordant contrast to the white, lucent light of the unseen moon, stretching across the shadowy landscape. Dew there was on the trees without; it scintillated now and then, and far away rose soft and noiseless mists. More than once the night sighed audibly in sheer pensiveness.
"Boys," said Bob Millroy, suddenly, "I be a believer in signs."
There was a motionless interest in every face turned toward him. A contagion of credulity was in the very word.
"Hyar we-uns hev been," he went on, "a-goin' tergether fur many a day in secret, an' sech ez our workin's air they ain't 'cordin' ter law nor the 'pinion o' the cove. An' I ain't felt 'feard nowise—though some mought say the hemp air growed an' spun, an' the rope air twisted—till this evenin', whenst Buck Cheever seen an' extry man 'mongst we-uns, ez turned away his face. Sence then the fire's cold!"
He spread out his hands toward it, shaking his head in token of the futility of its swift combustion, with its flashes and sparkle and smoke, as he chafed them together.