The darkness was rent by a long narrow lane of light. A door had been opened in a tightly-closed house, just beyond the dogs.
“Down, Tige! Git out, Beauty!” said Forstner, imperiously. “Lay down, Watch! Quiet Bruno!”
The clamors of the gang changed to little yelps of welcome.
“Is that you, Jim?” inquired a high-pitched but not unpleasant voice, from the door.
“Yes, Aunt Debby,” answered Fortner, “an' I hev some one with me.”
As the two approached, surrounded by the fawning dogs, a slender, erect woman appeared in the doorway, holding above her head, by its nail and chain, one of the rude iron lamps common in the houses of the South.
“Everything all right, Aunt Debby?” asked Fortner, as, after entering, he turned from firmly securing the door, by placing across it a strong wooden bar that rested in the timbers on either side.
“Yes, thank God!” she said with quiet fervor. She stepped with graceful freedom over the floor, and hung the lamp up by thrusting the nail into a crack in one of the logs forming the walls of the room. “An' how is hit with ye?” she asked, facing Fortner, with her large gray eyes eloquent with solicitude.
“O, ez fur me, I'm jes ez sound ez when I left heah last week, 'cept thet I'm tireder 'n a plow mule at night, an' hongrier nor a b'ar thet's lived all Winter by suckin' hits paws.”
“I s'pose y' air tired an' hongry; ye look hit,” said the woman, with a compassionate glance at Harry, who had sunk limpy into a chair before the glowing wood-fire that filled up a large part of the end of the room.