"I thanks ye," said Bear Cat gravely. "But I hain't askin' pity yit."
In the yard where so many feet had been tramping there was now total emptiness. The flock of geese still waddled and squawked down by the creek, but by the gate Bear Cat stood alone—a man who had forfeited his heritage.
The sun was setting and the ache of recent wounds and fatigue was accentuated by the rawness of approaching twilight. Beyond the trickle of prattling water, went up the frowning and unchanging hills, bleak and sinister with their ancient contempt for change. Bear Cat Stacy threw back his head.
"They don't see nothin' in me but brag an' foolishness," he bitterly admitted, "but afore God I aims ter show 'em thet thar's more in me then thet!"
Already a plan for the first chapter of his undertaking had fully evolved itself and it was a thing which must be launched to-night—but first he meant to make a sad pilgrimage. He would not go in, but he would stand outside Blossom's window—perhaps for the last time. Something drew him there—a compelling force and he remained an hour. When he turned away cold beads of nervous sweat stood on his temples.
Suddenly he saw two figures cross the road and plunge furtively into the laurel, and they moved as men move who have a nefarious intent. They were Dog Tate and Joe Sanders; the men to whom, last night, he had fled for succor, and at once he divined their purpose.
Bear Cat, too, turned into the timber and, by hurrying over the broken face of the slopes, intercepted their more cautious course. But when he stood out in the path and confronted them, it was no longer into friendly faces that he looked.
"Dog, I wants ter hev speech with ye," he said quietly, and the moonshiner, who had instinctively thrust forward his rifle, stood with a finger that trembled in impatience while it nursed the trigger.
"Don't hinder me, Bear Cat," he barked warningly, "I'm in dire haste—an' I've got severe work ahead of me."
"I knows right well what thet work air, Dog." The young man spoke calmly. "I reckon hit's a thing ye gave me yore pledge not many hours back ye'd put by twell another day an' I hain't freed ye from thet bond."