“God curse yer if yer do!” hissed Bowney from between his teeth.
“Better let him be, madam,” argued Caney, of Texas. “He’d better die like a man than go back on his friends. Might tell us which of ’em was man enough to fetch you and the young uns here? We’ll try to be easy on him when we ketch him.”
“None of ’em,” sobbed the woman. “We walked, an’ I took turns totin’ the young uns. My husband! Oh, God! my husband!”
“Beg yer pardon, ma’am,” said Bowney’s captor, “but nobody can’t b’leeve that; it’s nigh onto twenty mile.”
“I’d ha’ done it ef it had been fifty,” cried the woman, angrily, “when he wuz in trouble. Oh, God! Oh, God! Don’t yer b’leeve it? Then look here!” She picked up the smallest child as she spoke, and in the dim light the men saw that its little feet were torn and bleeding. “’Twas their blood or his’n,” cried the woman, rapidly, “an’ I didn’t know how to choose between ’em. God hev mercy on me! I’m nigh crazy!”
Caney, of Texas, took the child from its mother and carried it to where the moonlight was unobstructed. He looked carefully at its feet, and then shouted:
“Bring the prisoner out here.”
Two men carried Bowney to where Caney was standing, and the whole party, with the woman and remaining children, followed.
“Bill,” said Caney, “I ain’t a askin’ yer to go back on yer friends, but them is—look at ’em.”
And Caney held the child’s feet before the father’s eyes, while the woman threw her arms around his neck, and the two older children crept up to the prisoner, and laid their faces against his legs.