“Nobody ner nothin’ that’ll bite you, I reckon,” was the somewhat snappish response. It was the voice of Polly. She was looking up and across the mountains to where a bright red glare was reflected on the scurrying clouds. The density of the atmosphere was such that the movements of the flames were photographed on the clouds, rising and falling, flaring and fading, as though the dread spirits of the storm were waving their terrible red banners from the mountain.
“What can that be?” asked Chadwick, after he had watched the singular spectacle a moment.
Polly laughed aloud, almost joyously. She knew it was Israel’s beacon. She knew that these red reflections, waving over the farther spur of the mountain and over the valley that nestled so peacefully below, would summon half a hundred men and boys—the entire congregation of Antioch Church, where her father was in the habit of holding forth on the first Sunday of each month. She knew that Israel was safe, and the knowledge restored her good humor.
“What did you say it was?” Chadwick inquired again, his curiosity insisting on an explanation.
“It’s jest a fire, I reckon,” Polly calmly replied. “Ef it’s a house burnin’ down, it can’t be holp. Water couldn’t save it now.”
Whereupon she pulled the shawl from over her head, tripped into the house, and went about preparing breakfast, singing merrily. Chadwick watched her as she passed and repassed from the rickety kitchen to the house, and when the light grew clearer he thought he saw on her face a look that he did not understand. It was indeed an inscrutable expression, and it would have puzzled a wiser man than Chadwick. He chopped some wood, brought some water, and made himself generally useful; but he received no thanks from Polly. She ignored him as completely as if he had never existed.
All this set the private to thinking. Now a man who reflects much usually thinks out a theory to fit everything that he fails to understand. Chadwick thought out his theory while the girl was getting breakfast ready.
It was not long before the two soldiers were on their way up the mountain, nor was it long before Chadwick began to unfold his theory, and in doing so he managed to straighten it by putting together various little facts that occurred to him as he talked.
“I tell you what, Captain,” he said, as soon as they were out of hearing; “that gal’s a slick ’un. It’s my belief that we are gwine on a fool’s errand. ’Stead of gwine towards Spurlock, we’re gwine straight away from ’im. When that gal made her disappearance last night she went an’ found Spurlock, an’ ef he ain’t a natchul born fool he tuck to the woods. Why, the shawl the gal had on her head this mornin’ was soakin’ wet. It weren’t rainin’, an’ hadn’t been for a right smart while. How come the shawl wet? They weren’t but one way. It got wet by rubbin’ agin the bushes an’ the limbs er the trees.”
This theory was plausible enough to impress itself on Captain Moseley. “What is to be done, then?” he asked.