"Shorely!" grinned Mayfield. "Well, atter he had Old Buck all tight in jail, Cartwright—he's a reg'lar heller!—he watched the Wolfe wimmen; and when they went to their men folks over in the Balsam Cone section, he follered 'em. And 'en Cartwright he went back to Johnsville and got up a big posse, and went back and ketched every one o' the rest o' the clan. How's that fo' news?"
Wolfe had gone ashen. He believed, somehow, that Mayfield had told him the truth. And Mayfield really had.
"The whole outfit of 'em had a trial," the man beside the hemlock went on eagerly, "and they was all sent up to the State prison at Nashville fo' five year!"
That, also, was truth. Violently-suffering Little Buck Wolfe bent his head in gratitude for the silver lining to the cloud; five years was not half the sentence usually meted out for the crime of arson. A beautifully bright spot, too, was the turning of his iron father.
"I reckon you're a-wonderin' why I hain't never caused you to be ketched by the law, hain't ye?"
Mayfield's voice jarred. Wolfe shook his head.
"Not a bit, Cat-Eye. You're wanted, too, and you've no great wish to get anywhere near the authorities."
The man above eyed the man below peculiarly for a moment. Then the man above drawled, "Little Buck, you talk like a book. You look like a book. And you act like a book!"
Wolfe jumped as though he had been struck. His wife had told him that word for word one cold evening when they sat at their fireside; but she had said it admiringly, for she knew it was because he had, as it were, lived on a diet of books for eight years, so hungry had he been for education.