There were many whippoorwills calling out there in the woods but he thought this was a double call and that between its whistlings a man might have counted five. Of that, however, he could not be sure.
"I hain't got no choice, Dorothy," whined the man, whose craven soul was suffering acutely as he fenced for delay—delay at any cost. "Even ef I hed, though, I'd crave yore pardon of my own free will—but afore I does hit, thar's jest a few words I'd love ter say."
Dorothy Thornton stood just inside the door. Pity, mercy, and tenderness were qualities as inherent in her as perfume in a wild flower, but there was something else in her as well—as there is death in some perfumes. If he had been actually a poisonous reptile instead of a snake soul in the body of a man Bas Rowlett could have been to her, just then, no less human.
"Yes," she said, slowly, as a memory stirred the confession of her emotions, "thar's one thing I'd like ter say, too—but hit hain't in no words of my own—hit's somethin' thet was said a long spell back."
From the mantel shelf she produced the old journal, and opened its yellowed pages.
"I've been settin' hyar," said Dorothy Thornton, in a strained quietness of voice, "readin' this old book mighty nigh all day—I hed ter read hit—" her voice broke there, then went steadily on again—"or else go mad, whilst I was waitin'—waitin' ter know whether Ken hed kilt ye or you'd kilt him." Again she paused for a moment and turned her eyes to her husband. "This book sheds light on a heap of things thet we all needs ter know erbout—hit tells how his foreparent sought ter kill ther tree thet our ancestors planted—an' hit's kinderly like an indictment in ther high co'te."
While Dorothy Thornton accused the blood sprung from the renegade and his Indian squaw out of those ancient pages the men listened.
To the husband it was incitement and revelation. The tree out there standing warder in the dark became, as he listened with engrossed interest, more than ever a being of sentient spirit and less than ever a thing of mere wood and leaf.
To Bas Rowlett it should have been an indictment, or perhaps an excuse, with its testimony of blood strains stronger than himself—but from its moral his mind was wandering to a more present and gripping interest.
Now he was sure he had heard the double whippoorwill call! In five minutes more he would be saved—yet five minutes might be too long.