"Robbin' the safe," he mumbled, "he never done it. It was hatched up ag'in him."
He went down to the little whisky still that his own hands had built and operated. The mash-tubs and the copper boiler and worm were all white with frost. He touched the boiler, and felt that it was a contaminating thing—it stung him. There welled up in his bosom a great hatred for it.
"It was you," he said bitterly, "'at made me do what I done. And when I gits through wi' you, you ain't a-goin' to look nothin' at all like yoreself!"
Old Buck had forgotten that the sheriff's ultra-cunning deputy might be near him. His injured back, also, was forgotten. He drew an ax from the cold furnace, and with mighty blows destroyed his false god.
Then he bent his two knees to something that was neither a ginseng root, a woodchuck's den, nor a moonshine still.
XX
Little Buck Wolfe seemed much like a soldier fitted out in heavy marching order with his blanket-roll on his shoulder, and his pack on his back, and his rifle in his hand. He stopped and faced about when he had reached the crest of the Big Blackfern. The darkness of the night could not conceal from him the desolation that lay below; he saw it with his eyes shut! The candles in the cabins of the basin's bottom glowed like pale yellow stars in the gloom.
He centered his attention upon the light that shone from the nearest window of old Alex Singleton's cabin, and wondered whether Tot had put it there as a last pitiful shred of farewell to him. He was glad that he had kissed her—it had been an act of impulse—when they parted. The memory of that would be with him, sweet and tender, throughout the years that he must spend buried in the hardest work before the colossal debt could be paid in full. He was convinced now that he really loved Tot Singleton. And he did. He wouldn't have been human if he hadn't. As for marrying her—there was the debt! He couldn't afford to marry.
It was with a painful swelling of heart and throat that he turned away. Just then a feminine voice called his name. He halted quickly and looked around. A slender figure was hurrying up the dim path toward him.