Diada paid no heed to these admonitions, but continued her advance, holding Little Bit’s gun by the end of the barrel and swinging it like a club.
“Throw a chunk at her, Little Bit!” Isaiah howled. “Skeer her away!”
The boy snatched up a pebble, hurled it at Diada, and ducked under the house.
Diada stopped. Beholding Isaiah’s threatening gestures with the ax, she whirled the gun around her head like a cowboy preparing to hurl a lasso, and threw it, butt-foremost, at Isaiah. The weapon curved like an arrow, missed Isaiah’s head by two feet, struck against the side of the cabin, smashing the gun-butt to splinters and discharging both barrels!
Thereupon Isaiah and Little Bit departed from the hog-camp and did not come back for two days.
The sound of the explosion frightened Diada, and she leaped back into the jungle like a deer, struck the Tickfall trail, and one hour later sat down beneath the pecan-tree in Gaitskill’s yard.
Late that night Colonel Tom Gaitskill stuck his head into the door of his wife’s bedroom and demanded in irascible tones:
“Mildred, where are those sky-muckle-dun-colored pajamas young Tom sent me from Chicago?”
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Gaitskill laughed. “Have you looked for them?”