Steve bade Miss Welch good-by at her gate. He had scarcely gotten out of sight of her when he changed his easy canter to a long gallop, and a look of grim determination deepened on his face. At the first byway he turned off from the main-road and made his way by bridle-paths back to the point where he had rescued Miss Welch. Here he tied his horse and began to examine the bushes carefully. He was able at first to follow the track that the negro had made in his flight; but after a little distance it became more difficult. The storm had obliterated the traces. So Steve returned to the point where he had left his horse, remounted and rode away. He visited Andy Stamper’s and several other plantations, at all of which he stopped, but only for a few moments to speak a word or two to the men at each, and then galloped on to the next, his face still grim and his voice intense with determination.
That night a small band of horsemen rode through the Bend, visiting house after house. They asked for Moses, the trick-doctor. But Moses was not there. He had left early the morning before, their informants said, and had not been back since. There was no doubt as to the truth of this. There was something about that body of horsemen, small though it was, riding in pairs, that impressed whomever they accosted, and it was evident that their informants meant to tell the truth. If, on the first summons at a door, the inmates peered out curious and loud-mouthed, they quieted down at the first glance at the silent horsemen outside.
“What you want with him?” asked one of the men, inquisitively. Almost instantly, as if by machinery, two horsemen moved silently in behind him and cut him out from the group behind. “You know where he is? Come along.” Their hands were on his collar.
“Nor, suh, b’fo’ Gord I don’t, gentmens,” protested the negro, almost paralyzed with fright. “I didn’t mean nuttin’ in the worl’, gentmens.”
At a sign from the leader he was released, and was glad to slip back into obscurity behind the rest of the awe-struck group, till the horsemen rode on.
It was, no doubt, well for the trick-doctor that his shrewdness had kept him from his accustomed haunts that night. He visited the Bend secretly a night or two later; but only for a short time, and before morning broke he was far away, following the woodland paths, moving at his swift, halting pace, which hour by hour was placing miles between him and the danger he had discovered. Thus the County for a time, at least, was rid of his presence, and both white and blacks breathed freer.
CHAPTER XXXI
JACQUELIN GRAY LEARNS THAT HE IS A FOOL, AND STEVE ASTONISHES MAJOR WELCH