“Ye mean ter say ye don't 'low ter tell us.”
“I dunno whar he be.” Her voice had sunk to a whisper.
Another exchange of glances.
“Wa'al, ma'am, jes gin us the favor of a light by yer fire, an' we-uns 'll find him.”
He stepped swiftly forward, thrust a pine torch into the coals, and with it all whitely flaring ran out into the night; the others followed his example; and the terror-stricken women, hastily barring up the door, peered after them through the little batten shutter of the window.
The torches were already scattered about the slopes of Lonesome Cove like a fallen constellation. What shafts of white light they cast upon the snow in the midst of the dense blackness of the night! Somehow they seemed endowed with volition, as they moved hither and thither, for their brilliancy almost cancelled the figures of the men that bore them—only an occasional erratic shapeless shadow was visible. Now and then a flare pierced the icicle-tipped holly bushes, and again there was a fibrous glimmer in the fringed pines.
The search was terribly silent. The snow deadened the tread. Only the wind was loud among the muffled trees, and sometimes a dull thud sounded when the weight of snow fell from the evergreen laurel as the men thrashed through its dense growth. They separated after a time, and only here and there an isolated stellular light illumined the snow, and conjured white mystic circles into the wide spaces of the darkness. The effort flagged at last, and its futility sharpened the sense of injury in Luke Todd's heart.
He was alone now, close upon the great rock, and looking at its jagged ledges all cloaked with snow. Above those soft white outlines drawn against the deep clear sky the frosty stars scintillated. Beneath were the abysmal depths of the valley masked by the darkness.
His pride was touched. In the old quarrel his revenge had been hampered, for it was the girl's privilege to choose, and she had chosen. He cared nothing for that now, but he felt it indeed a reproach to tamely let this man take his horse when he had all the mountain at his back. There was a sharp humiliation in his position. He felt the pressure of public opinion.