In a moment Mrs. Chadron was grave again. She put out her hand in that gentle, motherly way and touched Frances’ hair, smoothing it from her forehead, pleased with the irrepressible life of it which sprung it back after the passage of her palm like water in a vessel’s wake.
“I let on to you a little while ago that I wasn’t uneasy, honey,” she said, “but I ain’t no hand at hidin’ the truth. I am uneasy, honey, and on pins, for I don’t trust them rustlers. I’m afraid they’ll hear that Saul’s gone, and come sneakin’ down here and burn us out before morning, and do worse, maybe. I don’t know why I’ve got that feelin’, but I have, and it’s heavy in me, like raw dough.”
“I don’t believe they’d do anything like that,” Frances told her.
“Oh, you don’t know ’em like we do, honey, the low-down thieves! They ort to be hunted like wolves and shot, wherever they’re found.”
“Some of them have wives and children, haven’t they?” Frances asked, thinking aloud, as she sat with her chin resting in her hand.
“Oh, I suppose they litter like any other wolves,” Mrs. Chadron returned, unfeelingly.
“Si a tu ventana llega una paloma,” sang Maggie in the kitchen, the snapping of the oven door coming 158 in quite harmoniously as she closed it on the baking peppers. Mrs. Chadron sighed.
“Tratala con cariña que es mi persona,” sounded Maggie, a degree louder. Mrs. Chadron sat upright, with a new interest in life apart from her uneasy forebodings about the rustlers. Maggie was in the dining-room, spreading the cloth. The peppers were coming along.
Somebody burst into the kitchen; uncertain feet came across it; a cry broke Maggie’s song short as she jingled the silver in place on the cloth. Banjo Gibson stumbled into the room where the low fire twinkled in the chimney, reeling on his legs, his breath coming in groans.
Maggie was behind him, holding the door open; the light from the big lamp on the dining-table fell on the musician, who weaved there as if he might fall. His hat was off, blood was in his eyes and over his face from a wound at the edge of his hair.