"Lord A'mighty, ye durned cowardly fool!" cried the leader of the party, beside himself with anxiety and many a premonition. "Didn't I tell ye agin 'twar jes' Steve, ez I never looked ter view, bein' ez he ain't reg'lar 'mongst we-uns?"
"Ye 'lowed he turned his face away," said the believer in signs.
"Waal, hev Steve got enny crick in his neck that disables him from a-turnin' of his face away?" demanded Cheever.
"He war in the shadder; ye never seen Steve," said Derridge, slowly shaking his logical head.
"He turned his face away so ez ye mought not view it," said Millroy, with a credulity that coerced responsive conviction.
Cheever was shaken. He suddenly desisted from argument. "Who air ye a-'lowin' 'twar?" he demanded from the opposite side of the fire.
The ligaments of his neck were elongated as he thrust his head forward. The fire-light showed only a glassy glitter where it struck upon the eyeballs beneath his half-closed lids. Bereft of the expression of his eyes, it was wonderful how much of suspense, of petrified expectation, of the presage of calamity, the hard lines of his face conveyed.
"'Twar him we met up with on the road that night," said Millroy, who from the affluence of his resources of conjecture could afford to dispense with mere proof and fact.
Cheever was conscious that the others were watching him with the urgent anxiety of those who have a personal interest at stake. The sense of emergency was substituted for courage.
"I wish 'twar," he said, coolly. "He ain't dead—a mighty pity! I'd give the bes' horse I ever see"—he nodded his head toward the gallant roan—"ef I could view his harnt."