"I hain't seekin' ter make ye gorryntee my long life, Bas. Ef I falls in any pitch-battle or gits kilt in a fashion thet's p'intedly an outside matter, ye hain't a-goin' ter suffer fer hit."
As the long-drawn breath went out between the parted lips of Bas Rowlett he wilted into a spectacle of abject surrender, then turning he led the way to the house, found pencil and paper, and wrote laboriously as the other dictated. At the end he signed his name.
Then Parish Thornton said, "Now I aims ter hev ye walk along with me till I gits my horse an' starts home. I don't 'low ter trust ye till this paper's put in a safe place, an' should we meet up with anybody don't forgit—I won't fail ter shoot ef ye boggles!"
CHAPTER XX
The sun, dropping into a western sea of amber and opal, seemed to grow in diameter. Then it dipped until only a naming segment showed and the barriers darkened against the afterglow.
Still Parish Thornton had not come home and Dorothy standing back of the open window pressed both hands over eyes that burned ember hot in their sockets.
Old Aaron Capper had mounted his horse a half-hour ago and ridden away somewhere—and she knew that he, too, had begun to fret against this insupportable waiting, and had set out on the unpromising mission of searching for the ambassador—who might already be dead.
A nervous chill shook the girl and she started up from the seat into which she had collapsed; frightened at the incoherent lack of sanity that sounded from her own throat.