When finally Lem reached the narrow twist where the trail jutted out and clung to the dew-damp breast of the mountain, he halted and dropping his torn shoes, which he had carried in his hand the past hour, he gazed along the ragged channel of a blind gulch that bit into the base of the mountain. The tree-fringed mouth of this gulch framed a picture below that entranced him. Upheld on the grass-grown palm of the distant clearing, he saw the squatty outlines of the meeting-house.
Like a blow from a bludgeon the tragic details of that unforgettable tragedy hissed and rankled anew in his brain;—that red, accursed half-hour amid the naked shadows of a lugubrious dusk, with death at his elbow; the cry of the panther in his ears, and a ghost that breathed and scowled and cursed over him.
Motionless, he looked at that wooden magnet below with a rapt, breathless stare. When he seized his damaged shoes and started onward, two stinging tears, hot with the acme of bitterness, fell off his chin, through his open shirt-front, and rolled across the white scars that dappled his breast.
When he made the next turn he was in full view of the cabin. He saw the blue-black martins, swirling around and chattering over their box. He heard the crowing of the cocks, and the see-saw music of the guineas behind the log barn. He saw the red steers reluctant to leave their warm wallow in the be-dewed stable yard. He placed his fingers to his mouth and gave two shrill whistles. In an instant his father's spotted hound bounded from behind the cabin, followed by four other obstreperous dogs. While the dogs were yapping and mobbing him with their boisterous welcome, Slab appeared at the cabin door, followed by Bud half-dressed.
"Hallaluyah! hallaluyah! hallaluyah!" shouted the old negro, gesticulating joyously and shambling pell-mell down the descent.
On the backward path to the cabin there followed a noisy and gladsome reunion. Hanging to his brother's arm, Buddy kept crying crazily:
"Lem hain't daid—Lem hain't daid—air yo', Lem?"
While Lem ate his breakfast, he told his own sad story and, in turn, Bud and the negro poured into his ears the happenings of the past months. Nor did Buddy omit a single detail of these events. He began with the trapping of a brown bear, and ended with the rehearsal of that terrible fight at Junction City, as he exhibited the scars of that sanguine combat.
"I air ole Cap Lutts' boy—hain't I, Lem?" he ended pridefully, probing for his brother's commendation.
"Yo' sho' air, Buddy—an' I air powerful happy t' own yo' fo' my brother—yo' kin show pap's blood in yore veins any day—I 'low yo' kin hold th' mounting some day," lauded Lem, with an affectionate slap, "an' yore brother Lem'll git thet onery low-down Sap McGill fo' shootin' a boy—fo' shootin' my brother. He'll answer—same's th' revenuer. I was thinkin' o' leavin' fo' a spell, Buddy, but I'll not leave heah, as long as God Almoughty holds th' clouds over these hills, an' my heart beats—I'll not leave til' I kill 'em both—I won't—I won't leave."