"My eyesight bein' sorter poorly, through agin' so much lately," the girl said, in her characteristic tone; but her own face was pallid, and as she leaned back in the chair she panted heavily.
"Don't fool me, Litt," the other adjured her, with heart-break in her voice. "War it Steve?"
"I never admired Steve," Litt gasped, "but I never thunk he war ugly enough ter be tarrified at the sight o' him."
Moses, who had turned his head upward, and looked bewildered from one to the other, now burst into a piteous wail with tears and sobs, imagining, from the excited talk, that an altercation was in progress, for, singularly enough for one of his stern and belligerent character, he deprecated a quarrel, and resented all interchange of loud words. His mother knelt by him to pat him on the back; the old dog licked his bare pink foot. Letitia still leaned back in the chair, her frightened face all at variance with her usual gay bravado.
"Who did it look like, Litt?" demanded Adelaide, not lifting her voice, and the peace-loving Moses, tolerating no quarrel that was not of his own making, turned his face, where the tears still lodged on the curves and in the dimples, to supervise the pacific answer.
"Like nuthin' I ever see afore; like nuthin' livin'," Litt barely whispered.
Adelaide's face blanched even in the red fire-light. The hand that patted Moses trembled as she knelt beside him.
Baker Anderson's blood was merely slightly stirred. The bluff courage with which he was endowed—no less sturdy because callow—enabled him to regard the odd incident as a welcome and exciting break in the monotony. He had considered his stay here with his rifle as rather the result of a senile whim on the part of his uncle than because any danger might menace the deserted Yates household. He was glad to have his presence and that of his weapon justified by some simulacrum of fear and trouble. Litt fancied that she detected in his manner a relish of her terrors. At all events, he evidently suddenly thought well enough of himself to venture an observation.
"Ye needn't be 'sturbed none, Mis' Yates. 'Twarn't nobody, mebbe. Ef ye'd like fur me, I'd take my rifle an' sorter tramp round the yard a leetle an' look out."
"No; no; bide whar ye air," cried Mrs. Yates. "Litt say," she faltered, "it moughtn't—be—alive," her voice quavered to silence.