Goardley blinked, but did not rise.
“I didn’t have the least idee you had got free, Dick, an’—”
“Well, you know it now, so git out to that hoss, ur by all that’s holy—”
Mrs. Wakeman drew herself erect and crumpled the paper in her bony hand.
“This is my house,” she said, “an’ I ain’t no married woman.”
The white fixity of Goardley’s countenance relaxed in a slow grin. An automatic affair it was, but as he took in the situation it was a recognition of the aid which had arrived at the last minute.
Wakeman stood up in his stockinged feet. He was still unruffled. “That’s a fact; the place is her ‘n,” he admitted. “But I ’ll tell you one article that ain’t. It’s that thar shootin’-iron on them deer-horns up thar, an’ ef you don’t git out ’n heer forthwith it ’ll make the fust hole in meat that it’s made in four yeer. Maybe me ’n Marty ain’t man an’ wife, but when we wuz married the preacher said, ‘What the Lord has j’ined together let no man put asunder,’ an’ I ain’t a-goin’ to set still an’ see a dirty, oily-tongued scamp like you try to undo the Lord’s work. You know the way out, an’ I was too late fer hog-killin’. I went into the penitentiary fer jest one spree, but I ’ll go in fer manslaughter next time an’ serve my term more cheerful—I mought say with Christian fortitude.”
Cowardice produced the dominant expression in Goardley’s face. He rose and backed from the room. The convict thumped across the resounding floor to the door and looked out after the departing man.
“Run like a skeered dog,” he laughed, impulsively, as he turned back into the room. And then he waxed serious as he entered the atmosphere circling about Marty, who, with a stormy brow, sat immovable, her eyes downcast.
“I couldn’t help it, to save me,” he began, apologetically, to her profile. “But I reckon you an’ me can manage to git along like we used to, an’ I never would ‘a’ had any respect fer myself ef I had a-let that scamp set heer an’ think he was a-courtin’ of you right before my eyes.”