The clouds lowered, like a broad, feathery blanket dropped from the skies, and the ironwood cross was hidden from his sight.
By nightfall he was very hungry. He had eaten nothing since his last meal in the jail at Johnsville. But he bore it with fortitude, and in his uncouth way tried to be thankful for the tiny stream of water that trickled out of a crevice in the rocks a few yards behind him. The long, dark hours dragged by, and midnight came. Still no one had come to bring him food. He stretched himself out on his side, with his great, shaggy head pillowed on a forearm, and went to sleep.
When morning dawned, he crept to the aperture and peered through cautiously. He saw nothing of Howard Cartwright, but that fact was not proof that the officer had quit the watch. The chances were that Cartwright had only changed positions.
The day passed, and night fell again, and still Old Buck Wolfe had had nothing to eat. He was ready to run any ordinary risk to satisfy his gnawing hunger now. He put his hands against the flat stone that his son had placed over the narrow mouth of the cavern, and overturned it. Another minute, and he was standing beside an upright, charred shaft of wood that had been a fine yellow poplar tree. Something drew his gaze upward; he saw millions of frosty, brightly-twinkling stars—promises, Grandpap Singleton had called them.
He began to move slowly and soundlessly down toward the deep gash that had hidden for so long his moonshine still. Save for its upper edges, this little hollow had escaped the fire.
Then a big, dark form stepped suddenly before him, and a voice that he recognized instantly inquired in low and guarded tones, "Buck, old feller, is that you?"
Old Buck choked back an oath that had come unbidden to his tongue. Had not Alex Singleton helped to save him from death in the worst of all its shapes, death by burning?
"Yes, Alex," he answered in a small voice, "it's me. I'm mighty nigh it starved plum' to a shadder. I jest had to git out, Alex, and try to find me somethin' to eat."
"Now le's be awful keerful," Singleton whispered. "Le's go to the cave, Buck."