He fell on his knees and Jack stood awed in the presence of the great emotion which shook the old man.
Finally he arose. “Come—Jack—let us go an' hunt for Cap'n Tom.”
But though they hunted until the moon went down they found no trace of him. For miles they walked, or took turn about in riding the old blind roan.
“It's no use, Bishop,” said Jack. “We will sleep a while and begin to-morrow. Besides, Eph is with him. I feel it—he'll take keer o' him.”
That is how it came that at midnight, that Saturday night, the old Bishop brought home a strange man to live in the little cabin in his yard.
That is how, a week later, all the South was stirred over the strange return of a fortune to the different corporations from which it had been taken, accompanied by a drawling note from Jack Bracken saying he returned ill-gotten gain to live a better life.
It ended laconically:
“An' maybe you'd better go an' do likewise.”
The dim starlight was shining faintly through the cracks of the outlaw's future home when the old man showed him in.
“Now, Jack,” he said, “it's nearly mornin' an' the old woman may be wild an' raise sand. But learn to lay low an' shoe hosses. She was bohn disapp'inted—maybe because she wa'n't a boy,” he whispered.