He stood up alertly, his sense of hearing directed to the hither drift of the night air. The intensity of the silence had again been broken. This was no skulking wolf or coyote. It had nothing to do with the frog chorus at the creek. It was a sound that came to him down the trail from the north-east. It was the familiar sound of the wheels and hoofs he had been awaiting.
He stretched his weary limbs. He yawned. Then he spat out his chew, and bit into a fresh one. Then he kicked his box into the doorway of his hut, and moved off somewhere in the direction of the house.
Lightning waited. The murmur of voices came to him, but the words themselves were indistinguishable. He intended that to be so, but he hated the necessity. Driven by headlong impatience, he felt himself to be something like a traitor to the charge that was his. But for the life of him it was impossible to break in upon the scene he knew to be enacting in the moonlight at the door of Molly’s home.
No, he must just stand by. He was yearning to drive the man headlong. He had the means to his hand, for all he was an old man and the other was in the full vigor of his youth. The savage in him was urging all the time. But even the savage was powerless before his love for the girl, and his reluctance to wound the heart that found happiness in the smile of McFardell’s dark eyes. He was torn between head and heart. And so he stood waiting, waiting until the farewell had been said.
The spring wagon was drawn up before the storm door of the house. The man and the girl were standing together somewhere in the shadow of the doorway. They were standing closely together, and Lightning was maddeningly conscious of that which was passing between them.
He translated it in his own way, inspired by all that was human in him. He felt that Molly was tightly clasped in McFardell’s arms. The girl was lost to everything, even to the wonderful finery which had set her nearly crazy with delight when she first gazed upon it. That was the way of women, he argued. No, she had no thought for anything or anybody but that—that—the man he hated.
There were moments of profound silence. Then there came moments when indistinguishable words passed between the two. Lightning wondered what they were saying, and would have hated to have known. Oh, he knew well enough. And as the sound of voices died out he understood that their words had been swamped by the passionate silence that fell so readily between them.
His witness of the scene was brief enough. Then, suddenly, the tones of Molly’s voice became raised, and something strident.
“You must go now, Andy,” Lightning heard her say, and a thrill of satisfaction gladdened his heart. Then there was added urgency. “Oh, you must go. Please, please! I—I can’t bear it. I sort of feel haf crazy. I don’t know—I—— Oh, Andy, please, please go—now.”