“But I thought she stopped and spoke to you,� said Dick. “It looked like—— Didn’t she speak to you?�
As Dick became uncertain, Isham grew positive. “Who? Miss Anne? I don’t riccermember her speakin’ to me. Naw, Miss Anne ain’t spoke to me.�
After all, Dick was not sure it was Anne. He had only seen a far-off figure in blue. He thought—he was not certain—it paused by Isham’s cart. He had not thought of Anne then, but now the conviction grew that it was she; and he was curiously disturbed by Isham’s manner, though he was sure the old negro would not hurt Anne.
Perhaps she had gone back, straying in the woods to get chinquapins, and was now safe at home. Oh! surely she was at home. Twilight was deepening. He would go home. He started back, examining the road closely. There in the sand were footprints, slim little tracks, Anne’s footprints!
So it was Anne that Isham had met. Why did he say he had not seen her? And why did he look so confused, frightened?
All the tracks led in one direction. There were no homeward-going footprints. Anne had passed this way, but she had not gone back. Where was she now? Did Isham know?
Dick ran to the cabin. No one was in sight, and door and shutter were closed; but—for it was now dusk—he caught glimpses of flickering firelight. He was just about to bang on the door when he heard a voice,—not Isham’s and not Lily Belle’s. He peeped through a knothole. There was a man sitting at the table. His back was turned. Dick crept to the side of the cabin and looked through a crack. Now Lily Belle was between him and the man. Isham threw a lightwood knot on the fire and the blaze flared up. And Lily Belle moved. The man was Cæsar Gabe, the deserter!
This news ought to go at once to The Village. But Anne! He could not go back without one effort to find her. He ran down the road to the ford. There he stopped. After listening intently and hearing nothing but the usual wood noises, he took out the candle he had brought for his mining, lighted it, and looked about. There, on the soft, damp ground, the footprints were distinct; and they went, not up the road, but along the path toward the mine.
Dick blew out the candle, squared his shoulders, and started up the hill. If Anne had gone to the Old Sterling Mine, if she had encountered the deserter—
Close to the mine he lighted his candle and saw rough, heavy tracks and again that slim little footprint.