“I know you’re all very kind about it, Gabriel, and very wise and considerate. I’m sure he couldn’t be in better hands.”
“Yes, your Aunt Marthy jest dotes on ’im.”
“I’m certain of that. But it was a strange thing for him to do, Gabriel, to pull out that line of stakes. I came up the gap with him the night he did it. He wanted to tell me then. I’m sorry now I didn’t permit him to. It might have saved him a deal of suffering.”
“Well, he’s taken it hard, I can tell ye. He ain’t the same boy he was six months ago. He couldn’t eat nor sleep nor rest, it worried ’im so. We all thought he was sick, he fell away that bad. Even your Aunt Marthy couldn’t do nothin’ fer ’im. But say, wa’n’t it grand, the way he come in there at the wind-up an’ told how things wuz; puffickly regardless of wuther he spent the nex’ six months in jail or no? There’s the Pickett grit fer ye!”
“Gabriel, I think it was heroic.” And the tears sprang into Charlie Pickett’s eyes as he thought of that pathetic little figure facing the crowded court room, battling with his fear and conquering it, brave to the limit in the cause of conscience and of truth.
“Yes, it wuz,” responded Gabriel. “An’ how under the sun an’ moon an’ seven stars he ever got here through them drifts! How did ’e git here, anyhow? He couldn’t ’a’ druv. They couldn’t no hoss ’a’ got through. He couldn’t ’a’ walked. Goliath o’ Gath couldn’t ’a’ walked it. An’ ’e didn’t fly. How did ’e git here, anyhow?”
“I don’t know, Gabriel. I hadn’t thought of it. How did he?”
The two men gazed at each other with a look of astonishment in their faces that slowly grew into awe. Then Gabriel lifted his eyes and pointed heavenward.
“God a’mighty,” he said reverently. “He done it fer ’im. Nobody else could.”
Then, for many minutes, the two men sat in silence. Gabriel was the first to speak.