The deputy marshal wheeled and started down the clearing on a long-stride, loping run, like a greyhound. Almost as they looked he was lost to sight among the trees beyond.
It occurred to Nelse Hornbeck now to relieve himself of his pack and accoutrements, and to make himself otherwise at home. He lighted his pipe, and stretched himself out comfortably on the roots of a stump by the doorway.
"Well," he remarked after a little, "I allus said I'd ruther have a pack of nigger bloodhounds after me than Norm Hazzard if I'd done anything that I wanted to git away for. But of course this is different. I don't know how much good he'll be tryin' to catch a man that ain't done anything. I s'pose it would be different, wouldn't it? But then of course he could pretend to himself that Mose had done something—and for that matter, all he's got to do is to play that Mose is still a deserter; and of course if you come to that, why, he is a deserter."
"He ain't nothing of the kind!" roared old Asa, with vehemence.
"Well, of course, Asy, if you say so," Nelse hastened to get in, with a pacific wave of his pipe, "I don't pretend to be no jedge myself in military affairs; I dessay you're right. Of course Mose is in one place, and the army's in another, but that don't prove that it wasn't the army that deserted Mose, does it? I'm a man of peace myself, and I don't set up to be no authority on these p'ints."
"Well, then, what are you talkin' about?" interposed Job, severely. "Don't you see old Asa's upset and nervous about Mose? Tell us about things you know something about. How's old Teachout?"
"Well, now, cur'ous enough," said Nelse, thoughtfully, "that's jest one of the things I don't know about at all, and nobody else knows, either—that is, this side o' Jordan. 'Lishe Teachout's ben dead of inflammation o' the lungs now—le's see—up'ards of a month. Why, come to think of it, Asy, why, yes, he ketched his cold goin' out to attend the sheriff's sale at your old place, and that daughter of his that run away with the lightnin'-rod agent—you remember?—she's come in for the hull property, and they say she's goin' to sell it and live down in New York. I guess she'll scatter the money right and left. And 'Lishe worked hard for it, too!"
Old Asa cast a ruminant glance over the little shanty, and the clearing full of warm sunshine, and the broad belt of stately dark firs beyond rustling their boughs in soft harmony with the tinkle of the stream below, and swaying their tall tops gently against the light of bright blue overhead. Then he drew a long, restful breath.
"There's things a heap sight better than money in this world," he said.
Mose had started out on his impulsive errand buoyantly enough. He made his way down the side hill to the outlet with a light, swinging step, and pushed along on the descent of the creek-bed, leaping from boulder to boulder, and skirting the pools with the agility of a practised woodsman, almost as if his mission were a joyful one.