"I reckon Kinnard Towers hired him killed.... I was a kid when he died, but my mammy give me his handkerchief, dipped in his blood ... an' I tuck my oath then." He paused a moment and went on more soberly: "I've done held my hand ... because of ther truce ... but I hain't nowise forgetful ... an' some day——"
Bear Cat leaned forward and laid an interrupting hand on the shoulder of the speaker, to find it trembling.
"Hearken, Dog," he said. "Mebby yore time will come sooner then ye reckoned. I wants thet afore sun-up ter-morrow word should go ter every Stacy in these-hyar hills, thet I've done sent out my call, an' thet they shell be ready ter answer hit—full-armed. I wants thet ye shall summons all sich as ye hev ther power ter reach, ter meet fer counsel at my dwellin'-house ter-morrow mornin' ... an' now I wants ter hev private speech with this-hyar man—" he jerked his head toward Henderson—"afore he gits past talkin'."
With a nod of comprehension the moonshiner and his helper slipped out of sight in the shadows, and kneeling at Jerry's side, Bear Cat again raised a cup of white whiskey to his lips.
The odor of the stuff stole seductively into his own nostrils, but he raised his eyes and saw again the evening star, not rising but setting.
"Blossom's star!" he groaned, then added, "Ye don't delight in me none, little gal! Thar hain't but one thing left thet I kin do fer ye—an' I aims ter see hit through."
With insupportable impatience he bent, waiting for a steadier light of consciousness to dawn in that other face. Every atom of his own will was focused and concentrated in the effort to compel a response of sensibility. Finally Henderson's eyes opened and the wounded man saw close to him a face so fiercely fixed that slowly, under its tense insistence, fragments of remembrance came driftingly and disjointedly back to him.
"Kin ye hear me?" demanded Bear Cat Stacy with an implacably ringing voice. "Does ye understand me?" And the other's head moved faintly—almost imperceptibly.
"Then mark me clost because I reckon both of us hes got ter stand afore many hours facin' Almighty God—an' hit don't profit us none ter mince words."
Through the haze of a brain still fogged and reeling, Henderson became aware of a hatred so bitter that it dwarfed into petulance that of the murder horde at the Quarterhouse.