"Consarn his old fool hide!" the old woman exploded.
Wolfe picked up Mayfield's rifle, threw the loaded cartridge out of the chamber, and let the hammer down carefully. Then he held the weapon out toward Tot Singleton.
"Take that home with you," he requested. "Mayfield can get it when he comes back."
Tot didn't take the rifle. Her lower lip began to quiver, and she looked away. "But I cain't never go home no more, Little Buck," she murmured.
"You can't go home!" he exclaimed in amazement.
She told him haltingly why. A very little smile curled Wolfe's mouth at the corners.
"So you, too, are an outcast," he said, half-sympathetically, half-resentfully. "But don't feel so badly about it! We always have our compensations, little girl. I wonder if—will you go along with me, Tot?"
She answered simply, "I'd go anywhar with you."
Grandpap Singleton took the rifle. Granny Wolfe addressed her kinsman:
"Ef you're a-goin' to town, you'd shore better start. I seed yore pap's old blue-tailed hen a-settin' on the fence a-pickin' her feathers this mornin', and I've heerd two treefrogs a-hollerin', and them's all good signs o' rain."