"Howdy, Newt?" he greeted. The boy made no response, and shifted his weight from foot to foot, while his eyes kindled with growing fury. About a little roadside puddle fluttered a small flock of white and lemon butterflies, disturbed by human invasion, and on a branch overhead a squirrel ran out and stopped cautiously.
"There's a squirrel, Newt," suggested the Deacon casually. "I reckon you're squirrel-huntin', ain't you?"
But the boy did not answer, and the Deacon knew why. He was thirteen miles from home, and was stalking bigger game than squirrels.
CHAPTER XI
For a little space the two men looked at each other, the Deacon to outward seeming with the casual interest of a chance meeting, and the boy with a lowering truculence which augured trouble.
The little mud-butterflies alighted again at the edge of the puddle, and the squirrel whisked himself away.
Back on the hillsides the white elder blossoms and pink-hearted laurel cups nodded in the sleepy languor of a summer afternoon. In the overhead blue a buzzard drifted on tilting wings.
"You're right far off your beat, ain't you, son?" suggested Black Pete at length.
The sullen visage did not alter or brighten.