“‘T ain’t his’n. ‘T is my dad’s old buckshot ca’tridges an’ powder an’ ball. They belong ter me. The other childern is my half-brothers, bein’ my mother war married twice. Ye kin steal this gear from me, ef that will make ye feel easier.”
“But what will yer gran’dad say ter me?” “He won’t know who ye be; he will jes ‘low ye air one o’ the boys who air always foolin’ away thar time visitin’ me an’ makin’ tallow-dips skeerce.” The sudden gleam of mirth on her face was like an illuminating burst of sunshine, and somehow it cast an irradiation into the heart of the fugitive, for, after she was gone out of sight, he pondered upon it.
But the early dusk fell from a lowering sky, and the night came on beclouded and dark. Some turbulent spirit was loosed in the air, and the wind was wild. Great, surging masses of purple vapor came in a mad rout from the dank west and gathered above the massive and looming mountains. The woods bent and tossed and clashed their boughs in the riot, of gusts, the sere leaves were flying in clouds, and presently rain began to fall. The steady downpour increased in volume to torrents; then the broad, pervasive flashes of lightning showed, in lieu of myriad lines, an unbroken veil of steely gray swinging from the zenith, the white foam rebounding as the masses of water struck the earth. The camp equipage, tents and wagons succumbed beneath the fury of the tempest, and, indeed, the hunters had much ado to saddle their horses and grope their way along the bridle-path that led to old Kettison’s house.
The rude comfort of the interior had a heightened emphasis by reason of the elemental turmoils without. True, the rain beat in a deafening fusillade upon the roof, and the ostentation of the one glass window, a source of special pride to its owner, was at a temporary disadvantage in admitting the fierce and ghastly electric glare, so recurrent as to seem unintermittent. But the more genial illumination of hickory flames, red and yellow, was streaming from the great chimney-place, and before the broad hearth the guests were ensconced, their outstretched boots steaming in the heat. Strings of scarlet peppers, bunches of dried herbs, gourds of varied quaint shapes, hung swaying from the rafters. The old man’s gay, senile chirp of welcome was echoed by his wife, a type of comely rustic age, who made much of the fact that, though housebound from “rheumatics,” she had reared her dead daughter’s “two orphin famblies,” the said daughter having married twice, neither man “bein’ of a lastin’ quality,” as she seriously phrased it. Meddy, “the eldest fambly,” had been guide, philosopher, and friend to the swarm of youngsters, and even now, in the interests of peace and space and hearing, was seeking to herd them into an adjoining room, when a sudden stentorian hail from without rang through the splashing of the rain from the eaves, the crash of thunder among the “balds” of the mountains, with its lofty echoes, and the sonorous surging of the wind.
“Light a tallow-dip, Meddy,” cried old Kettison, excitedly. “An’ fetch the candle on the porch so ez we-uns kin view who rides so late in sech a night ‘fore we bid ‘em ter light an’ hitch.”
But these were travelers not to be gainsaid—the sheriff of the county and four stout fellows from the town of Colbury, summoned to his aid as a posse, all trooping in as if they owned the little premises. However, the officer permitted himself to unbend a trifle under the influence of a hospitable tender of home-made cherry-bounce, “strong enough to walk from here to Colbury,” according to the sheriff’s appreciative phrase. He was a portly man, with a rolling, explanatory cant of his burly head and figure toward his interlocutor as he talked. His hair stood up in two tufts above his forehead, one on each side, and he had large, round, grayish eyes and a solemn, pondering expression. To Meddy, staring horror-stricken, he seemed as owlishly wise as he looked while he explained the object of his expedition.
“This district have got a poor reputation with the law, Mr. Kettison. Here is this fellow, Boyston McGurny, been about here two years, and a reward for five hundred dollars out for his arrest.”
“That’s Boy’s fault, Sher’ff, not our’n,” leered the glib old man. He, too, had had a sip of the stalwart cherry-bounce. “Boy’s in no wise sociable.”
“It’s plumb flying in the face of the law,” declared the officer. “If I had a guide, I’d not wait a minute, or if I could recognize the man whenst I viewed him. The constable promised to send a fellow to meet me here,—what’s his name!—yes, Smith, Barton Smith,—who will guide us to where he was last glimpsed. I hope to take him alive.” he added with an inflection of doubt.
Certainly this was a dreary camp-hunt, with all its distasteful sequelae. Purcell, who had no more imagination than a promissory note, silently sulked under the officer’s intimation that, being able-bodied men, he would expect the hunters also to ride with him. They were not of his county, and doubted their obligation, but they would not refuse to aid the law. Bygrave, however, realized a “story” in the air, and Seymour was interested in the impending developments; for being a close observer, he had perceived that the girl was in the clutch of some tumultuous though covert agitation. Her blood blazed at fever-heat in her cheeks; her eyes were on fire; every muscle was tense; and her brain whirled. To her the crisis was tremendous. This was the result of her unwarranted interference. Who was she, indeed, that she should seek to command the march of events and deploy sequences? Her foolish maneuvering had lured this innocent man to ruin, capture, anguish, and death. No warning could he have; the window was opaque with the corrugations of the rainfall on the streaming panes, and set too high to afford him a glimpse from without. And, oh, how he would despise the traitor that she must needs seem to be! She had not a moment for reflection, for counsel, for action. Already the signal,—he was prompt at the tryst,—the sharp, crystalline vibration of the tap on the glass!