“May God curse old Absalom Gannt an’ all his kin,” she said at last, shaking a skinny hand toward heaven. “I pledge ye to it, Davy. Tell the last one of them all’s gone, we’ll not fergit. Oh, Davy, it was fer this that ye was borned!”
They stood thus, a grim enough group, when the sound of hoofs in the creek bed intruded. Bullock stepped to the door and accosted the newcomer.
“Howdy, Cal,” said he. “Light down an’ come in.”
The rider dismounted, casting his bridle rein across the top of a picket.
“Andy home?” asked he.
“Well, he is an’ he hain’t,” said Bullock. “Come on in.”
“Well, I thought I’d come in an’ see him——”
“Come in. Ye can see all thar is of him,” and he led the way.
“Good God A’mighty! God damn me!” exclaimed the visitor, as he caught sight of what lay on the bed in the room to which they led him. “Granny, how come this? He’s daid!”
“Yes, he’s daid,” said Granny Joslin calmly. “He hung hisself down below by the spring right now. Ye kin see whar the rope cut in his neck. He was a-breathin’ when they put him thar. If that fool boy Chan had had any sense at all he’d of cut him down an’ done saved him.”