“Yo’ came to the right place, yo’ po’ lil’ chile.”
The eyes had seen all they needed to see and the hand let drop the pretty, quivering face.
“We’ll wait—oh! certainly we-all will wait a week; two weeks; then three. An’ we-all will hide close and see what we-all shall see!” A hard, pitiful laugh echoed through the room. “And now to bed! Take the closet back o’ my chamber. No one can reach yo’ there, chile. Sleep and dream and—forget.”
And that night Burke Lawson, after an hour’s struggle, determined to come forth among his kind and take his place. Nella-Rose had decided him. He was tired of hiding, tired of playing his game. One look at the face he had loved from its babyhood had turned the tide. Lawson had never before been so long shut away from his guiding star. And she had said that he might ask again when he dared—and so he came forth from his cave-place. Once outside, he drew a deep, free breath, turned his handsome face to the sky, and felt the prayer that another might have voiced.
He thought of Nella-Rose, remembered her love of adventure, her splendid courage and spirit. Nothing so surely could win her as the proposal he was about to make. To ask her to remain at Pine Cone and settle down with him as her hill-billy would hold small temptation, but to take her away to new and wider fields—that was another matter! And go they would—he and she. He would get a horse somewhere, somehow. With Nella-Rose behind him, he would never stop until a parson was reached, and after that—why the world would be theirs from which to choose.
And it was at that point of Lawson’s fervid, religious state that Jed Martin had materialized and made it imperative that he be dealt with summarily and definitely.
After confiding his immediate future to the subjugated Martin—having forced him to cover at the point of a pistol—Burke, with his big, wholesome laugh, crawled again out of the cave. Then, raising himself to his full height, he strode over the sodden trail toward White’s cabin with the lightest, purest heart he had carried for many a day. But Fate had an ugly trick in store for him. He was half way to White’s when he heard steps. Habit was strong. He promptly climbed a tree. The moon came out just then and disclosed the follower. “Blake’s dawg,” muttered Lawson and, as the big hound took his stand under the tree, he understood matters. Blake was his worst enemy; he had a score to settle about the revenue men and a term in jail for which Lawson was responsible. While the general hunt was on, Blake had entered in, thinking to square things, while not bringing himself into too much prominence.
“Yo’ infernal critter!” murmured Lawson, “in another minute you’ll howl, yo’ po’ brute. I hate ter shoot yo’—yo’ being what yo’ are—but here goes.”
After that White’s was impossible for a time and Nella-Rose must wait. In a day or so, probably—so Burke quickly considered—he could make a dash back, get White to help him, and bear off his prize, but for the moment the sooner he reached safety beyond the ridge, the better. Shooting a dog was no light matter.
Lawson reached safety but with a broken leg; for, going down-stream, he had met with misfortune and, during that long, hard winter, unable to fend for himself, he was safely hidden by a timely friend and served by a doctor who was smuggled to the scene and well paid for his help and silence.