“Well, they is a few more of us,” he answered. “Was you a-looking for any of us in particular?”
“Mr. Dudley Gaines,” I answered in a manner that bordered on the lofty, as if I felt that the status of my family must be much the same commanding one at Crow Point that it was down in Hillsboro.
“I reckon you’ll have to holler that loud enough to reach about twenty-five miles acrost to Pigeon Creek, gal, if you want to git him,” was the unimpressed answer.
“Twenty-five miles!” I spoke less haughtily this time. “Can’t I get there to-night?”
“You could ef you had started this time last night,” was the practical reply.
Suddenly the fact that I was planted down in the wilderness of gigantic mountains, alone except for one aborigine of the masculine gender, overpowered me so that I sank down on the log and became much meeker in manner and spirit.
“What’ll I do?” I asked, and this time my words were nothing more than a subdued and respectful peep.
“Wall, I reckon Stivers and missus will have to take you in for the night,” answered the native, with a condescending drawl. “They might not, but you mentioned young Gaines’s name. We ’most shot him for a revenue when he first came, but he’s brought a sight of good work amongst us, and lives like he was fellow-man with all. Be you his sister or his woman?”
“Sister,” I answered, taking a grain of courage at thus hearing Dudley’s name mentioned as that of a prominent citizen of the fastnesses.
“Yes, Stivers had a cross on his gun for Dud, and he mighty nigh got a bloodstain to smear on it ’fore he found out that he were just a logger. But Stivers’ll take you in, I reckon, now he knows you belong to his tribe, though his cabin is so small you couldn’t cuss a cat without getting hair in your teeth.”