Tot Singleton looked questioningly toward Little Buck, who said no word, gave no sign.
"Please, Tot," the old hillman begged, "go and tell Oliver and Brian and the rest what I said. The debt it's all mine, and I hain't a-goin' to let nobody else pay none of it. Please go, Tot!"
"Must I?" Tot whispered to Little Buck.
She had no answer whatever. After half a minute of waiting, she disappeared in the rainy night.
A quarter of an hour afterward, the clan stole hurriedly up to its leader. Old Buck asked them to go while there was yet time. But they would not agree to it. They wouldn't be yellow. One man should not pay all of the debt to the law.
"Ef you'd jest go along wi' us, Buck," finally said Brian Wolfe, "then we might go."
"But I cain't hardly walk!" Old Buck exclaimed. "I'd be nothin' but a drawback and dead weight on ye. Go on, boys! You cain't resk a-bein' sent to the State penitenchy, a-leavin' yore famblies to make their own way; don't ye see? It hain't fair to 'em! Yore fust duty lays to yore wimmenfolks and children, boys; hain't ye got hoss sense enough to know that much?"
Little Buck Wolfe caught his strapping brother Oliver by the shoulders and shook him.
"You've got to do it, Oliver," he said hoarsely. "I'll hide him—" he pointed to his father, and looked covertly toward the open front door—"somewhere; and when he's able to travel he can follow the rest of you to the Balsam Cone country. You've got to do it!"
"Atter the way we treated you?" Oliver Wolfe's voice was almost pathetic. "You'll shorely hide him?"