"I'm not hurt," he assured her, "except for a twisted ankle, but it's a miracle of luck. Where's your father?"
No actress trained and finished in her art could have carried off with greater perfection a semblance of tranquillity than had Blossom while his safety hung in the balance. Now, with that need ended, she leaned back against the support of the wall with her hands gropingly spread; weak of knee and limp almost to collapse. Her amber eyes were preternaturally wide and her words came with gasping difficulty. She had forgotten her striving after exemplary grammar.
"He hain't hyar—he won't be back afore to-morrow noon. Thar hain't nobody hyar but me."
"Oh!" The monosyllable slipped from the man's lips with bitter disappointment. He knew the rigid tenets of mountain usage—an unwritten law.
A stranger may share a one-roomed shack with men, women and children, but the traveler who is received into a cabin in the absence of its men compromises the honor of its women.
"Oh," he repeated dejectedly, "I was seekin' shelter for the night. I'm famishin' an' weary. Kin ye give me a snack to eat. Blossom, afore I fares forth again?"
It was with entire unconsciousness that he had slipped back into the rough vernacular of his childhood. At that moment he was a man who had rubbed elbows with death and he had reverted to type as instinctively as though he had never known any other life.
"Afore ye fares forth!" In Blossom's eyes blazed the same Valkyrie fire that had been in them as she barred his path to Bear Cat Stacy's still. "Ye hain't a-goin ter fare forth, ter be murdered! I aims ter hide ye out right hyar!"
Civilization just then seemed far away; the primal very near—and, in that mood, the hot currents of long-denied love for this woman who was defying her own laws to offer him sanctuary, mounted to supremacy. Such a love appeared as logical as a little while ago it had seemed illogical. Eagle blood should mate with eagle blood.
"But, little gal," Jerry protested, "ye're alone hyar. I kain't hardly tarry. Ef hit became known——"