“That’s ‘My’ Stocking’s roan,” said Jeffrey, straightening in his saddle; “I’d know that horse three miles away.”
“But what’s he carrying?” cried Ruth excitedly, as she peered eagerly from under her shading hand. “Look. Across his saddle. Rifles! Two of them!”
Brom Bones, sensing the girl’s excitement, was already pulling at his bit, eager for a wild race down the hill. But Jeffrey, after one long, sharp look at the oncoming horseman, pulled in quietly to the side of the road. And Ruth did the same. She was too well trained in the things of the hills not to know that if there was trouble, then it was no time to be weakening horses’ knees in mad and useless dashes downhill.
The rider was Myron Stocking from over in the Crooked Lake country, as Jeffrey had supposed. He pulled up as he recognised the two who waited for him by the roadside, and when he had nodded to Ruth, whom he knew by sight, he drew over close to Jeffrey. Ruth, eager as she was to hear, pushed Brom Bones a few paces farther away from them. They would not talk freely in her hearing, she knew. And Jeffrey would tell her all that she needed to know.
The two men exchanged a half dozen rapid sentences and Ruth heard Stocking conclude:
“Your Uncle Catty slipped me this here gun o’ yours. Your Ma didn’t see.”
Jeffrey nodded and took the gun. Then he came to Ruth.
“There’s some strangers over in the hills that maybe ought to be watched. The country’s awful dry,” he added quietly. He knew that Ruth would need no further explanation.
He pulled the Bishop’s letter from his pocket and handed it to Ruth, saying: