"It's jes fur a time," he reiterated.
"Wait an' see!" she retorted, triumphantly.
"I won't wait," he declared, goaded; "I'll take him yit; an' when I do I'll clar out'n the State o' Tennessee—see ef I don't!"
She turned white and trembled. "Ye dassent," she cried out shrilly. "Ye'll be 'feared o' the law."
"Wait an' see!" He mockingly echoed her words, and turned in his old confident manner, and strode out of the crowd.
Faint and trembling, she crept into the old canvas-covered wagon, and as it jogged along down the road stiff with its frozen ruts and ever nearing the mountains, she clasped the cheerful Kittredge with a yearning sense of loss, and declared that the judge had made him no safer than before. It was in vain that her father, speaking from the legal lore of the code, detailed the contempt of court that the Kittredges would commit should they undertake to interfere with the judicial decision—it might be even considered kidnapping.
"But what good would that do me—an' the baby whisked plumb out'n the State? Ef Abs'lom ain't 'feared o' Tim's rifle, what's he goin' ter keer fur the pore jedge with nare weepon but his leetle contempt o' court—ter jail Abs'lom, ef he kin make out ter ketch him!"
She leaned against the swaying hoop of the cover of the wagon and burst into tears. "Oh, none o' ye'll do nuthin' fur me!" she exclaimed, in frantic reproach. "Nuthin'!"
"Ye talk like 'twar we-uns ez made up sech foolishness ez habeas corpus out'n our own heads," said Timothy. "I 'ain't never looked ter the law fur pertection. Hyar's the pertecter." He touched the trigger of his rifle and glanced reassuringly at his sister as he sat beside her on the plank laid as a seat from side to side of the wagon.
She calmed herself for a moment; then suddenly looked aghast at the rifle, and with some occult and hideous thought, burst anew into tears.