Abraham spoke with a decision that brought his jaw close up under his nose.
"He is my master," insisted Abraham, and, smiling suddenly, he whispered: "Mah ol' Marse Johnnie Cracken!"
"What's that?" called David.
Abraham stared at him with unseeing eyes. A mist of years drifted between them, and now the old man came slowly out of the past and found himself seated on the lawn in a lonely valley with great, naked mountains piled around it.
"What did you say?" repeated David.
Abraham hastily changed the subject.
"In those days if a stranger came to the Garden of Eden he did not stay. Aye, and in those days Abraham could have taken the strongest by the neck and pitched him through the gates. I remember when the men came over the mountains—long before you were born. Ten men at the gate, I remember, and they had guns. But when my master told them to go away they looked at him and they looked at each other, but after a while they went away."
Abraham rocked in an ecstasy.
"No man could face my master. I remember how he sat on his horse that day."
"It was Rustir?" asked David eagerly.