"An' yit," continued the cripple, earnestly, "ef thet old-time war ever busts loose afresh hit'll make these hyar numerous small streams, in a manner of speakin', run red with men's blood an' salty with women's tears, too, I fears me. I've done dream't of a time when all thet pizen blight would be swep' away from ther hills like a fog—an' I sought ter gain yore aid in hastenin' thet day. A man kain't skeercely plead with his enemy but he kin with his friend—an' that's how I hoped I'd be met."
"Yore friend is what I'd love ter be." Maggard stood with his hand resting on the bark of the tree, as though out of it he might hope to draw some virtue from the far past which it commemorated or from the dust of those wiser men whose graves its roots penetrated. His eyes were darkly clouded with the trouble and perplexity of his dilemma. To refuse still was to stand on a seeming point either of over-stubborn pride or of confessed guilt. To accede was to face the court that wanted him for murder and that would prostitute justice to hang him.
"Them things ye dreams of an' hopes fer," he went on in a voice thrilling with earnestness and sincerity, "air matters thet I've got heart an' cravin' ter see come erbout. An' yit—I kain't answer yore question. Hit's ther only test ye could seek ter put me ter—thet I wouldn't enjoy ter meet outright——"
"Then, even atter what I've told ye, ye still refuses me?"
"Even atter what ye've told me, an' deespite thet I accords with all ye seeks ter compass hyarabouts, I've got ter refuse ye. I hain't got no other choice."
This time Hump Doane and his delegation did not turn back, but crossed the stile and passed stiffly on.
Thornton, for now it was useless to think of himself longer as Cal Maggard, stood straight-shouldered until the turn of the road took them beyond sight, then his head came down and his eyes clouded into a deep misery.
That night the moon rode in a sky where the only clouds were wisps of opal-fleece and the ranges were flat-toned and colossal ramparts of cobalt. Down in the valley where the river looped its shimmering thread the radiance was a wash of platinum softly broken by blue-gray islands of shadow.
Dorothy Thornton stood, a dim and ghostly figure of mute distress, by the grave in the thicketed burial ground where the clods had that day fallen and the mound still stood glaringly raw with its freshly spaded earth, and Parish Thornton stood by her side.
But while she mourned for the old man who had sought to be father and mother to her, he thought, too, of the sagacious old shepherd without whose guidance the flocks were already showing tendencies to stampede in panic.