“You air in purty bad shape,” said Shem.
“Yes,”—the words came very slowly—“my lungs give out on me—and my eyes. But—but I got here.”
“You come jist in time,” said his cousin; “this time tomorrer and you wouldn't a' never found me here. I'd 'a' been gone.”
“Gone!—gone whar?”
“Well,” said Shem slowly, “after you was sent away it seemed like them Tranthams got the upper hand complete. All of our side whut ain't dead—and that's powerful few—is moved off out of the mountings to Winchester, down in the settlemints. I'm 'bout the last, and I'm a-purposin' to slip out tomorrer night while the Tranthams is at their Christmas rackets—they'd layway me too ef——”
“But my wife—did she——”
“I thought maybe you'd heered tell about that whilst you was down yon,” said Shem in a dulled wonder. “The fall after you was took away yore woman she went over to the Tranthams. Yes, sir; she took up with the head devil of 'em all—old Wyatt Trantham hisself—and she went to live at his house up on the Yaller Banks.”
“Is she——Did she——”
The ex-convict was struggling to his knees. His groping skeletons of hands were right in the hot ashes. The heat cooked the moisture from his sodden garments in little films of vapor and filled the cabin with the reek of the prison dye.
“Did she—did she——”