Wolfe gave the old woman an odd look. "Never, perhaps."
"Well, now, that 'ar beats the Old Scratch." Granny Wolfe's face was troubled. "Shorely, honey, you hain't never axed her!"
Old Buck pressed forward a little in the concealing laurel that he might not fail to catch the rest of it.
"No," said his son, "I haven't asked her. And I probably won't, because she wouldn't accept me if I did. I learned that much, anyway!"
Old Buck clicked his teeth. "Well, I'll be damned!" he muttered into his beard.
XI
It was the first of October, which in the mountains means clear and frosty nights and days like rare old wine. The pointed shadow of bald Picketts Dome was reaching for the jagged summit of the Big Blackfern; it was, therefore, almost four o'clock. Granny Wolfe sat huddled low in the doorway on the sunny side of her old cabin; she was trying hard for a nap. Her little black dog Wag lay at her feet, now and then snapping at a bothersome fly.
The old hillwoman was in an irritable mood. She had slept almost none the night before, which had been occasioned by her worrying over the day when the little railroad would reach Devil's Gate, the basin's mouth; she feared, and with good reason, that blood would be shed then. Her son Buck was harder than ever, more grim, more silent, more terrible than ever.
"Wag, drot ye," she said indistinctly, "ye'll gi' me fleas, ye little devil."