A man near the grave began quietly working his way to the outer fringes of the gathering, and when he had escaped immediate observation, he went with hot haste. Kinnard must know of this.
He had detected an undernote in that general murmur of astonishment, which was clearly one of satisfaction. The Stacys had derived pleasure in this ocular proof that Bear Cat was not dead.
As the preacher said "Amen" Bear Cat bent tensely forward and caught both of Blossom's hands in his own. "I kain't tarry," he said, "even fer a leetle spell, but I wanted ye ter know thet I done my best ter get hyar afore."
She looked at him with dazed eyes which under the intensity of his gaze slowly began to awaken into understanding.
Turner went on eagerly, "I started over hyar as soon as I got yore letter, but I was set upon an' wounded. I've been insensible well nigh ever sence then."
"Oh, Turney!" she whispered, as the grief which had held her in its thrall of unrelieved apathy suddenly broke into an overflow of tears. "Oh, Turney, I'm glad ye tried. He kept callin' fer ye. 'Peared like he wanted to tell ye somethin'." The clods were falling dully on the grave.
The crowd held back, fretting against the edict of decorum, as the voices rose in the miserable treble of song, to which two hounds added their anguished howls. At the last words of the verse, an instant clamor of question and discussion broke in eager storm—but Bear Cat had melted into the thicket at his back. With the same mystifying suddenness that had characterized his appearance, he had now disappeared.
Excited men rushed hither and thither, calling his name. They beat the woods and tramped the roads, but with as little result as though he had, in fact, appeared out of his grave and returned again to its hiding.
The story of that funeral was going with the pervasive swiftness of wind throughout the country-side. It was being mouthed over in dark cabins where toothless grannies and white-shocked grandsires wagged their heads and recalled the manner of Bear Cat's birth.