"Who's there?" came a deep harsh voice from within. "Is that you, Ashley?"
"No; it's me—Kirby Garfield. Open the door."
The upper half of the door swung inward, and Richard Brent's head and shoulders were framed in the opening. The light behind him left most of his face in shadow, but could not obscure the harsh gaunt lines of his features nor the gleam of the bleak gray eyes.
"What do you want, at this time of night?" he demanded, with his usual bruskness.
I replied shortly, for I did not like the man; courtesy in our part of the country is an obligation no gentleman thinks of shirking.
"I came to tell you that it's very likely that a dangerous negro is prowling in your vicinity. Tope Braxton killed Constable Joe Sorley and a negro trusty, and broke out of jail this morning. I think he took refuge in Egypt. I thought you ought to be warned."
"Well, you've warned me," he snapped, in his short-clipped Eastern accent. "Why don't you be off?"
"Because I have no intention of going back through those woods tonight," I answered angrily. "I came in here to warn you, not because of any love of you, but simply because you're a white man. The least you can do is to let me put up in your cabin until morning. All I ask is a pallet on the floor; you don't even have to feed me."
That last was an insult I could not withhold, in my resentment; at least in the piny woods it is considered an insult. But Richard Brent ignored my thrust at his penuriousness and discourtesy. He scowled at me. I could not see his hands.
"Did you see Ashley anywhere along the trail?" he asked finally.