He made no reply to her question, though a warm color had suddenly come into his face at the words she had spoken. He took up his valise and looked out at the setting sun.
“How fer is it out thar?” he asked, a tremor in his voice. “I want to see ’er to-night.”
“Three mile, I reckon,” the woman said. “Keep to the big road tel you cross the creek, an’ then turn off to the right. You cayn’t miss it.”
He thanked her, and trudged on past the other stores and the little white church on the hill, and on into the road that led toward the mountain. Just before entering the woods, he turned and looked back at the village.
“O Lord, I’m glad I ain’t too late entirely,” he said; and he took a soiled red handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. “I don’t know what I would ‘a’ done ef they’d ‘a’ said she was gone. But I ’ll never see Joe ag’in, an’ that seems quar. Poor boy! me an’ him used to be mighty thick when we was little bits o’ fellers. I kin remember when he’d ‘a’ fit a wildcat to help me, an’ I got mad at him fer drinkin’ when he wasn’t able to he’p hisse’f. I’d hold my peace ef it was to do over ag’in.”
Sanders’ house was a low, four-roomed log cabin which sat back under some large beech-trees about a hundred yards from the road. Sanders himself sat smoking in the front yard, surrounded by four or five half-clad children and several gaunt hunting-dogs. He was a thin, wiry man, with long brown hair and beard, and dark, suspicious eyes set close together. He did not move or show much concern as Jim Bradley, just at dusk, came wearily up the narrow path from the bars to the door.
“Down, Ski! Down, Brutus!” he called out savagely to his barking dogs, and he silenced their uproar by hurling an ax-helve among them.
“This is whar Alf Sanders lives, I reckon,” said Bradley.
“I’m the feller,” replied Sanders. “Take a cheer; thar’s one handy,” and he indicated it with a lazy wave of his pipe.
Jim sat down mutely. Through the open door in one of the rooms he could see the form of a woman moving about in the firelight. He fell to trembling, and forgot that he was under the curious inspection of Sanders and his children. A moment later, however, when the fire blazed up more brightly, he saw that it was not his mother whom he had seen, but a younger woman.