"Now kneel down," came the command from the bed, and the command was reluctantly obeyed.
"Repeat these hyar words atter me ... 'I swa'rs, in ther sight an' hearin' of God Almighty....'" and from there the words ran double, low voiced from two throats, "'thet till sich time as Cal Maggard kin walk abroad, full rekivered ... I won't make no effort ter harm ner discomfort him ... no wise, guise ner fashion.... Ef I breaks this pledge I prays God ter punish me ... with ruin an' death an' damnation in hell hyaratter!"
"An' now," whispered Maggard, "kiss ther book."
As the weirdly sworn malefactor came slowly to his feet the instinct of craft and perfidy brought him back to the part he must play.
"Now thet we onderstands one another," he said, slowly, "we're swore enemies atter ye gits well. Meantime, I reckon we'd better go on seemin' plum friendly."
"Jist like a couple of blood-brothers," assented Maggard with an ironic flash in his eyes, "an' now Blood-brother Bas, go over thar an' set down."
Rowlett ground his teeth, but he laughed sardonically and walked in leisurely fashion to the hearth.
There he sat with his feet outspread to the blaze, while he sought solace from his pipe—and failed to find it.
Possibly stray shreds of delirium and vagary mingled themselves with strands of forced clarity in Cal Maggard's thinking that night, for as he lay there a totally unreasonable comfort stole over him and seemed real.
He had the feeling that the old tree outside the door still held its beneficent spell and that this magic would regulate for him those elements of chance and luck without which he could not hope to survive until Dorothy and Uncle Jase came back—and Dorothy had started on a hard journey over broken and pitch-black distances.