"I reckon, Bud, one reason air this," he said bitterly, "thet I'm accounted ter be a drunkard my own self an' like as not, one sich reason es thet air plenty."
Turner glanced up to the bristling ridge which he must climb. Already the west was kindling into a flare of richness and the skyline hills were dyed with ashy purple.
"I've done over-tarried," he said abruptly, as he lifted his sack from the floor, but his face wore a glow which was not altogether from the sinking sun. "I reckon I'd better be on my way—but I hain't denyin' thet I've done hed thoughts like your'n myself, Bud."
But young Stacy had not gone far when that sense of intensified woodcraft which Blossom had derided caused him to halt dead in his tracks.
The sound that had first arrested him had been nothing more than a laugh, but, in it, he had recognized a quality that bespoke derisive hostility and a thickness that indicated drink.
He had left the place empty except for Old Bud Jason and no one could have reached it, unannounced by normal sounds, so soon unless the approach had been achieved by stealth.
Bear Cat Stacy put down his sack and worked his way back, holding the concealment of rock and laurel; guarding each footfall against the betrayal of a broken twig—and, as yet, denied a view of the tub-mill. But his cars were open and doing duty for his eyes.
"Wa'al," came the miller's voice in a wrathful tremolo, "what business brings ye hyar es ef ye war aimin' ter lay-way somebody? Folks gin'rally comes hither upstandin'—an' open."
This time the voice of the new arrival was sneeringly truculent:
"Does they come thet-a-way when they fotches in sprouted corn thet they dastn't take elsewhere?"