"We are bad boys, sis dear," he said, tenderly. "We have not treated you right; no one knows that better than Martin and I, and we are getting paid for it. I hope Keith won't die. God knows I do! I really haven't anything against him. It was just a dispute over a game of poker. He was mad and so was I. Good-by. We must go. They will not find us where we are going."
"Hurry!" she gasped, as she slid from his arms. "Hurry!"
Side by side the two boys hastened toward the barn. The little group saw them pass through the stable-yard, climb over the fence, and vanish in the thicket which was the border of the vast forest that reached out, dank and trackless, into the mountains toward the west.
With a little sigh of despair, Mary sank down on the lowest step of the veranda. Her father looked at her for a moment with a childlike stare of perplexity, and then said:
"Come, come, don't act that way! It won't do any good."
"Come in de house, missie," Aunt Zilla said, gently, and as soothingly as a mother to an ill child. "Dem boys is gwine ter give de sheriff de slip en' dat man will pull thoo. Come on. Yo' breakfust is gittin' cold. Mr. Brown wants ter git ter his wuk in de cotton."
To his surprise, Charles saw Mary sit more erect. It was as if by a superhuman effort she had shaken herself temporarily free from the overpowering disaster.
"Yes, you must have your breakfast," she said, smiling faintly at Charles. "Come, let's go to the dining-room."
At the table he found himself admiring the self-control of both Mary and her father. Charles noted that Mary ate but little, and that little she seemed to take without relish. Rowland had his manuscript at his side at the table, and once he consulted it, as if his mind had reverted to something he had been interested in before the arrival of his sons.
"I am sorry that I did not have the opportunity to present my boys to you," he remarked once. "I told Kenneth who you were and assured him that you had given us evidence of your friendly spirit. He is glad that you have come to help us out with the work. One might not think so from his present conduct, but he hates to see his sister do manual labor in the field."