XIII.

With all this in his mind, the little house, coming in sight below the

massive dark-green slope of the great mountain, seemed to Guthrie to

hold peculiar significance. With a poignant sentiment which he might

not analyze, he watched it grow from a mere speck into its normal

proportions. The sun flashed from its roof, still wet with the dew,

but the shadows were sombrely green in the yard. Such freshness the

great oaks breathed, such fragrance the pines! Adown the lane the cows

loitered, going forth to their pastures. He saw a mist, dully white,

move in slow convolutions along a distant purple slope, pause for a

glistening moment, then vanish into thin air. Away up the gorge all

diurnal fancies trooped into the wide liberties of endless luminous

vistas of azure sunlit mountains beneath the shining azure heavens, the

ranges and valleys changing with every mood of the atmosphere, with the

harlequinade of the clouds and the wind. The river, with all the graces

of reflection, presented a kaleidoscopic comminglement of color--it

showed the grim gray rocks, the blue sky, the glow of the rose-red

azalea, the many gradations of tint in the overhanging foliage and

in the umber and ochre of the soil of the steep banks. The ponderous

cataract fell ceaselessly with its keen, swift, green rush above and

its maddening white swirl below. On the bank the pygmy burying-ground

seemed by contrast the fullest expression of quiet, with its deep

shadows and its restful sheen, and naught to come and go but a booming

bee or a bird upspringing from the long grass.

All was imprinted upon his consciousness with a distinctness which he

had never before known, which he did not seek to interrogate now. It

seemed to partake of the significance of a crisis in his life, and

every trifle asserted itself and laid hold upon him.

Letitia was sitting upon the porch in a low rocking-chair. He

recognized her from far away; but when he had hitched the horse at the

gate and came walking slowly up the path, and she lifted her eyes to

meet his grave, fixed look, there was something in them that he thought

he had never before seen--infinitely beautiful, indescribable; a mere

matter of expression, perhaps, for the luminous quality and the fine

color of the deep-blue iris were as familiar even to his dreams as to

his waking sense. It seemed a something added; it served, in some sort,

to embellish the very curve of her cheek, the curl of her delicate lip,

the waving of her hair where it was gathered out of the way at the nape

of her white neck.

He had known that her beauty was generally held in scant esteem, and he

had vaguely wondered to find himself in contradictory conviction to the

popular sentiment. He had welcomed Shattuck's protestation of its charm

as a trophy of its high deserts. He remembered this now. "Shattuck

'lowed she war plumb beautiful, an' hed a rare face; an' she hev! she

hev! Thar's nobody looks like her."

More than the usual interval of survey warranted by the etiquette of

salutation passed as he stood by the step of the porch, and gazed at

her with absorbed, questioning eyes. Her light, caustic laughter roused

him.

"What ails ye ter kem hyar with the manners o' a harnt, Fee Guthrie;

not speakin' till ye air spoke ter; stare-gazin'"--she opened her eyes

wide with the exaggeration of mimicry--"ez ef me an' Moses war some

unaccountable animals ez ye hed kem ter trap?"

Then, with a smile that seemed to have all the freshness of the

matutinal hour in it, she bent again to her work of hackling flax. No

arduous job was she making of it. The hackle was placed upon the low

shelf-like balustrade close by, and as the swaying of the rocking-chair

brought her forward she would sweep the mass of flax in her hands

across its sharp wires, drawing all the fibres through as she swung

back again. She had hardly more industrial an aspect than a thrush

poised on a blooming honeysuckle vine that ran over the porch, idly

rocking in the wind, with not even a trill in his throat to attest his

vocation as musician. A bundle of the flax lay in a chair at her side,

and another in her lap; and as she swayed back and forth some of the

fine, silvery white stuff slipped down over her light-blue dress and

on the floor in the reach of Moses. He was beginning to appreciate the

value of occupation, and could not all day quiescently resign himself

to the passive development of teeth. He had attained the age when the

imitative faculties assert themselves. He had furnished himself with

a wisp of flax from the floor, and now and again bent his fat body

forward, swaying the wisp to and fro in his hand, after the manner in

which Letitia passed the flax over the hackle, then sought to stuff it

into his mouth--with him a test of all manner of values. Somehow the

meeting of his callow, unmeaning, casual glance, for he was very busy

and ignored the new-comer, disconcerted Guthrie. So forlorn was he,

and little!--his future was an unwritten page, and what bitter history

might it not contain! And those who were nearest to him were framing

the words and fashioning the periods. But it was to be his to read! A

heavy intimation of its collocations was given by the recollection of

his father yesterday in the horse-thief's gang--and Stephen Yates once

had an honest name, and came of honest stock! Then Guthrie thought of

the deceitful mother, and he sat down on the step with a sigh.

"Mought ez well! mought ez well!" he said, lugubriously, unconsciously

speaking aloud, as Letitia adjured Moses not to swallow the flax and

choke himself.

"He _hedn't_ 'mought ez well,'" she retorted, tartly. Then, for the

infant's benefit, "I reckon, though, I could get hold o' the eend of it

in his throat, but Mose would feel mighty bad when I h'isted him up on

my spinnin'-wheel an' tuck ter spinnin' him all up!"

The great Dagon, not altogether comprehending this threat, listened

with an attentive bald head upturned, a damp and open mouth, his

two bare feet stretched out motionless, one above the other, and

his _décolleté_ red calico dress quite off one stalwart shoulder.

But with a gurgle and a bounce he let it pass, with only his usual

sharp-tempered squeal of rebuke, and then placidly addressed himself

anew to discover what gustatory qualities lurked in the unpromising,

unsucculent wisp of flax.

"Mose an' me air keepin' house," observed Letitia. "Mis' Yates air

a-dryin' apples down yander by the spring."

Guthrie's glance discovered the mottled calico dress and purple

sun-bonnet of Adelaide at some distance down the slope, as she spread

the fruit upon a series of planks laid in the sun.

"It air jes' ez well," he said, gloomily. "I dun'no' ez I keer ter see

her ter-day."

Letitia, as she swayed forward and flung the flax across the wires,

cast a surprised glance upon him. "Ye air toler'ble perlite fur so soon

in the mornin'--I notice ginerally ez perliteness grows on ye ez the

day goes on--cornsiderin' ye air a-settin' on _her_ doorstep, an' this

air _her_ house."

"I want ter see jes' you-uns," he indirectly defended himself. He

took off his hat, the wind tossing his curling hair as he leaned

backward against the post of the porch; he started to speak again, then

hesitated uncertainly.

If she noticed that he had lost his wonted slow composure, the

discovery did not affect her. She still swung back and forth in her

rocking-chair, as nonchalantly as the thrush swayed on the vibrating

bough.

"Letishy," he said at last, "I wisht ye wouldn't 'bide hyar."

Her eyes widened. "Perliteness _do_ grow on ye," she exclaimed. "Whar

air ye 'lowin' I hed better 'bide?"

The opportunity was not propitious. Nevertheless he seized it. "I wish

ye'd marry me an' 'bide up on the mounting at my house," he said,

breathlessly.

The color flared in her face, but she still rocked to and fro, and with

her casual indolent gesture hackled the flax. "Mus' be so pleasant

'long o' Mis' Guthrie," she said.

She had adopted as response the first suggestion that came, only to

escape from the confusion that beset her; but as a painful flush dyed

his face, she rocked a trifle less buoyantly back and forth, and looked

keenly though covertly at him, when he rejoined, quietly:

"I be powerful mistaken in you-uns ef ye would gredge a shelter ter a

'oman ez be old, an' frien'less, an' pore, an' not kind, an' hev earned

nuthin' but hate in a long life--_ye_, young, an' pritty, an' good, an'

respected by all!"

She paused in her rocking. She looked steadily, motionlessly at him.

"Would ye turn her out ef I did?" she asked, in a tone of stipulation.

He hesitated; then, "Naw, by God, I _wouldn't_!" he declared.

There was a momentary silence. A smile crept to the delicate curves of

her lips and vivified with its light the sapphire of her eyes. "Fee

Guthrie," she exclaimed, "I never looked ter have cause ter think so

well o' ye!"

He gazed at her a trifle bewildered. "An' ye will marry me? Litt, ye

know how much I think o' ye; 'pears like I can't tell how much I love

ye."

She had thrown herself into her former nonchalant attitude, and was

swaying back and forth in the rocking-chair, and gayly hackling the

flax. She shook her head, smiling at him.

In his heartache, the pang of disappointment, the demolition of all his

cherished hopes--and how strong they had been, albeit he had accounted

them slight, had named them despair! with what throes they died!--he

felt as some drowning wretch that sees a swift, unheeding bark sail

past his agony.

"Account of her?" he gasped.

Once more she smilingly shook her head.

"Some other man?" his face had grown sterner; its hard lines were

reasserted.

The telltale color flared in her cheeks; he saw again, rising with

the thought of that "other man," the look in her eyes which made

them trebly beautiful. It was in vain that she shook her head, and

carelessly flaunted the flax as she swayed back and forth.

His eyes were full of fire; his breath was quick; the fever of angry

hate was in his pulses. "'Twon't be the _fust_ time ye hev throwed me

over fur Rhodes," he said between his teeth, the instinct to identify

his rival strong within him.

She laughed aloud with such ready scorn that credulity failed him.

"Then _who kin_ it be?" he demanded, expectantly.

She paused once more, gravity on her face, the shining fibrous flax

motionless in her hand. "I'll tell ye--I'll tell ye, ef ye promise

never ter tell."

He was dumfounded for an instant. Surely a lover never received a

confidence like this!

"I dun'no' ez I want ter know till I be obligated ter find out," he

said, gruffly.

"What did ye ax fur, then?" she retorted.

In his state of feeling he had scant regard for logic. It was only

for the space of a moment that he sat silent, then asked, "Who, then,

Litt--_who_ is the man?"

She looked down upon him with a sort of solemnity that induced a

forlornly eager, palpitating expectancy, as he looked up wincing and

waiting to hear.

"_Baker Anderson!_" She pronounced the words soberly. Then, with

a peal of laughter, she flung herself back in the rocking-chair,

swinging backward with a precipitancy that startled the idle thrush,

still preening his morning wing on the honeysuckle vine, and sent him

flashing through the sunshine like a silver arrow to the woods.

Guthrie stared stolidly at her for a time, hardly knowing his mind

between anger and surprise. Then his stern features gradually relaxed.

There was something in her merry subterfuge that savored of coquetry.

The terrible vitality of his starveling hope roused itself upon the

intimation. His long sigh was a breath of relief. Perhaps he should

not have expected a direct response in his favor. "Wimmin 'pear ter

set store on all sort'n round-about ways; I reckon I'll hev ter try

a haffen dozen." This was his unspoken deduction. He only said,

cumbrously seeking to adopt her lightsome vein, "I be powerful 'flicted

ter hear it be Baker ez air the favored ch'ice. I dun'no' how I'll ever

make out ter stan' up agin Baker."

And he slowly laughed again. He could hardly have expressed how much

the incongruity of the idea comforted him. He was looking about with

the relief that ensues upon a grave and poignant crisis happily

overpast. He saw, with a sort of indiscriminating satisfaction, the

dew so coolly glittering on the long grass; in the deep green shadow

of the trees the white elder blossoms gleamed. The wind came straight

from the mountains, so full of strength and freshness and perfume, it

seemed like the very breath of life. So often a wing cleft the blue

sky, and all the nestlings were abroad! He noted a dozen yards down

a dank path a stubby, ruffled scion of a mocking-bird, standing in

infantine disaffection to the prospect of locomotion, and watching

with unambitious eyes the graceful example of the paternal flight, as

the parent aeronaut darted across short distances from honeysuckle

to glowing cabbage-rose, and called forth encouragement in clearest

clarion tones, and sought to stimulate emulation--fated, like

some disappointed worldly fathers, to hear only a whining vibrant

declination of the mere attempt at progression from the sulky brat in

the path. Guthrie, his mind once more receptive to details, observed

for the first time that the little party on the porch had been joined

by the old dog, who so valued the society of Moses, and who sat beside

him as the infant capably went through all the motions of hackling

flax; the canine friend followed with alert turns of the head and

puzzled knitted brow the wavings of the short fat arm, and kept time

the while with an approving wagging tail.

"Thinks mo' of him now than Steve do," Guthrie reflected, for the very

sight of Moses's bald head was pathetic in his eyes. Then his mind

reverted to his own anxiety because of Letitia. "Litt," he said, and

there was a sort of peremptory proprietary vibration in the tone, "I

don't want ye ter 'bide hyar no longer. I want ye ter go home."

She paused, the flax motionless in her hand. A resolute light was in

her eyes. She gave a decisive nod. "Mis' Yates ain't a-goin' ter shoot

off that rifle at nobody agin," she said, unexpectedly. "_I_ be goin'

ter company that rifle closer'n a brother."

For a moment Guthrie was a trifle bewildered--the story of the

mysterious shots fired at the party in the pygmy burial-ground, the

slain colt, Mrs. Yates's futile denials, all detailed by Ephraim, had

been superseded in interest by his own adventures and the theories that

he had deduced from them. "Waal," he said at last--formally taking her

standpoint into account--"that ain't nuthin' ter you-uns; ye can't

guide Mis' Yates's actions. It jes' shows another reason why ye oughter

be at home. Mis' Yates s'prises me; she ain't the 'oman I took her fur;

but ef she kills Mr. Shattuck fur her foolish notions 'bout opening

the graves o' the Leetle People, _she'll_ hev ter answer ter the law.

'Tain't nuthin' ter _you-uns_."

He was not looking at her; he had plucked a blade of the sweet-flag

that grew by the step, casually tearing its delicate stripes of white

and green, all unnoting that her face had turned a pallid, grayish hue;

that she sat as still as if petrified, her eyes dilated, and fixed with

a sort of fascinated terror upon some frightful mental picture.

"Mis' Yates s'prises me," Guthrie resumed. "Eph says she 'lows ez her

husband lef' her 'kase she swore she would fire that very rifle at

Shattuck ef he opened a 'pygmy' grave, ez he calls it. I'll be bound,

though, Steve didn't leave fur sech ez that. I ain't got nuthin' agin

the Leetle People," he stipulated, with a quick after-thought. "I know

no harm of 'em, an' I respec' 'em, though dead an' leetle. I wouldn't

'low nobody ter kerry thar bones off'n my lan', not even Mr. Shattuck,

though I'd do mo' fur _him_ 'n ennybody else--he hev got sech a takin'

way with him! I tole him he mought hev one o' thar pitchers ez air

buried with 'em, an' I'd gin the leetle pusson one o' my pitchers out'n

the house. I reckon 'twould be ez good ez his'n." He paused, meditating

on the ethics of this exchange. "But I war glad when Shattuck 'lowed

he hankered fur no pitcher, but jes' wanted ter take a look at thar

jugs an' ornamints an' sech, fur the knowledge o' the _hist'ry o' the

kentry_." He repeated these last words with a sort of solid insistent

emphasis, as charged with impressiveness and importance, for the whole

enterprise was repugnant to him, and he sought to justify it to himself

by urging its utility, a magnified idea of which he had gleaned from

Shattuck's talk. He had torn the blade of sweet-flag into shreds, and

now he cast the fragments from him. "But it jes' shows ez Mis' Yates

ain't a fit 'oman fur ye ter be with, firin' rifles an' sech, an'

knowin' the hiding-place o' evil-doers, purtendin' all the time ter

be so desolated an' deserted. Litt, air it jes' lately ye knowed whar

Steve war, or did ye know it 'fore ye kem hyar ter keep her comp'ny?"

Then, as she sat stonily gazing at him, he added, "Did ye know it them

evenin's ez I kem a-visitin' down hyar?"

She spoke slowly, with a measureless wonderment on her face. "Air ye

bereft, Felix Guthrie? I dun'no' whar Steve Yates air, an' Adelaide

don't nuther."

It was hard to shake his confidence in her. Perhaps no words might

have served--least of all any that Cheever could speak--save those

accompanied by the savage, deep strokes of a bowie-knife aiming for his

heart. The frank sincerities of the steel were coercive; it had been

thus that her name had been cut into his very flesh, a slash for each

syllable. They all ached in unison with the recollection.

"Ye air foolin' me," he said, reproachfully. But even then he sought to

adduce a worthy motive. "Ye air doin' it fur the sake o' yer frien's,

Litt. But ye can't mend thar mean, preverted natur'. Ye oughter go

home; home is the place fur gals."

To an overbearing man, unfurnished with the authority of kindred,

and restrained by even primitive etiquette from aught more coercive

than advice, there was something painfully baffling in the headstrong

impunity with which she cried, gayly, as she set her chair to rocking

once more, "The angel Gabriel with his trumpet mought wake the dead an'

'tice 'em from the grave, but he couldn't say nuthin' ez would summons

me from this spot."

So small, so feminine, and yet so easily and amply victorious!--it

was hardly in his imperative nature to submit gracefully to so

inconsiderable an adversary. "An' thar's daddy Pettingill," he cried,

angrily, "a-quar'lin' 'kase his craps hev got too much rain, or

too leetle, an' stare-gazin' the clouds, so sulky an' impident, I

wonder the lightnin' don't strike him fur his sass. An' thar's mammy

Pettingill makin' quince preserves, an' callin' all the created worl'

ter see how cl'ar they be. An' thar's that fool, Josh Pettingill, mus'

take this junctry ter marry Malviny Gossam, an' go off ter live, an'

leave _nobody_ ter take keer of his own _sister_. An' ye air lef' hyar

ter 'company a 'oman ez fires off rifles at peaceful passers, an' ter

know the secrets o' whar Steve Yates an' Buck Cheever be hid out. Ef

ye war _my_ darter"--severely paternal--"I would put ye right now up

on that horse ahint o' me, an' ride off _home_ with ye; an' _darned_

ef I hain't got a good mind ter tote ye back ter them absent-minded

Pettingills ennyhow!"

There was no absolute intention in his words, but he had risen as he

spoke, and she cowered a little; there was something in his proportions

that constrained respect, and her spirit of defiance was abated

somewhat.

"Fee," she said, seeking to effect a diversion, "what makes ye 'low ez

Adelaide an' me know whar Steve Yates be hid out?"

"'Kase yestiddy whenst I run agin a gang o' fellers, hid out--I reckon

they air arter some mischief--an' Steve war 'mongst 'em, Buck Cheever

'lowed ez 'twar you-uns ez told me. They air workin' agin the law, I

_know_."

She did not at once remember the hasty chance shot--the keen

divination--in the mock message she had sent to Steve Yates by

Cheever; but the expression on the horse-thief's face came back to her

presently, as if it had been held indissolubly in her mind for future

recall. Evidently Cheever had believed that in some incomprehensible

way she had possessed herself of the knowledge, and spoke from its

fulness.

She sat still, absently gazing at the flax. "An' ye 'lowed I

knowed sech ez that, an' be in league with folks ez work agin the

law--thievin' or sech--an' yit ye kem down hyar an' ax me ter marry ye?"

"'Kase I be dead sure, Litt, ez ye wouldn't do no harm _knowin' it_,"

he replied, precipitately. "I wish I hed faith in Heaven like I hev in

you-uns. I war jes' feared Mis' Yates an' them war foolin' ye 'bout'n

it, an' hed tangled ye up in suthin' ez ye didn't onderstand the rights

of." He looked down eagerly at her, but her face was inscrutable.

"I ain't so easily fooled," she observed, succinctly.

He glanced about him, evidently on the eve of reluctant departure, but

still lingering. The infantile mocking-bird at intervals piped his

strident vibrant "C-a-a-ant! c-a-a-ant! c-a-a-ant!" The parent bird's

keen, clear call rang out, so full of meaning that it seemed strange

that it should be inarticulate, and ever and anon his white wing

feathers, as he whirled in the air, shone dazzlingly in the sunshine.

Moses continued to experiment with the possibilities of flax for food,

sometimes constrained to sputter by his misdirected ardor. Guthrie

would fain prolong the pleasant peaceful time.

"I mus' be a-joggin'," he said, however. "I feel powerful foolish

ridin' another man's horse. An' I be a-goin' ter turn him over ter the

constable o' the deestric', an' tell how I got him by accident, so

flustered by the fight."

For the first time she recognized Cheever's horse at the gate.

"War thar a fight?" she said.

He nodded.

"_Ye_ didn't take a hand in it? Waal, I be s'prised--_ye_, ez hev sot

out ter be a saint o' the Lord!"

"That don't make no diff'unce," he said, hastily defending his piety.

"The reason thar ain't no mo' fightin' 'mongst the saints an' disciples

the Bible tells about air 'kase thar warn't no fire-arms in them days;

I hev hearn pa'son say thar warn't none. An' that's why peace war so

preached up then, fur mighty few men like ter kem ter close quarters

with a knife."

His own wounds ached anew with the suggestion, but with a savage pride

in his prowess he said naught of them; he would not have admitted their

existence to the man who had dealt them; Cheever might take only what

testimony he could from the blood on his knife.

She was looking at him with that admiration, so essentially feminine,

of his valor, his ready hand, his fierce spirit. "So ye j'ined in?" she

said, smiling.

"Ef firin' a dozen pistol-shots be j'inin' in," he replied, his eye

alight at the recollection.

She changed color. "War ennybody hurt?" she quavered.

"Listen at the female 'oman!" he exclaimed, in exasperation, because

of the contradictions of sentiment she presented. "Fairly dotes on

the idee o' other folks a-fightin', an' yit can't abide the notion o'

nobody gittin' hurt! The Guthries hev the name o' shootin' straight,

Litt Pettingill, an' I'd be powerful 'shamed ef in twelve shots I done

no damage. 'Tain't been my policy nor my practice ter waste lead an'

powder."

He stood leaning against the post, vainly speculating concerning the

probable execution of his revolvers when he had escaped, firing

them with both hands. It was for a moment with absent, unseeing eyes

that he mechanically regarded her, but the image that had so great

a fascination for him presently broke through the absorptions of

his retrospect, and asserted itself anew--so dainty, so blithe, so

bird-like, so lightly swaying as she sat in the rocking-chair.

Her association with these incongruous elements of suspected fraud, and

ill-favored deeds, and unfitting companions seemed a profanity, and his

eager wish to have her removed far from them, shielded, inaccessible,

was renewed.

"Mr. Shattuck hain't got no need o' you-uns, Litt, ter pertect him," he

urged, suddenly. "He'd laff at the idee, ef he warn't ashamed of it;

ennybody o' yer size an' sex a-settin' out ter pertect a able-bodied

man from rifle-balls."

He looked down at her with a laugh of ridicule and a sneering eye,

calculated to put out of countenance her valorous intention.

She said nothing; but determination, immobility, could hardly have had

more adequate expression than in her face, her soft and delicate lips

closed fast, her eyes bright and fearless.

"But shucks!"--he sought to make light of it--"Shattuck ain't a-goin'

ter kem agin ter the Leetle People's buryin'-groun'--leastwise not

when Mis' Yates be out an' stirrin'." A dim prospect of organizing a

nocturnal expedition for Shattuck's assistance was shaping itself in

his mind. "She can't be on watch night and day."

Letitia looked up, her interest in all that interested Shattuck

shining in her eyes. "That's the very word what _I_ told him," she

said. "He'd better kem an' dig at night, whenst the moon shines, like

he done afore."

A sudden angry pain thrilled through Guthrie. It was only yesterday

that Shattuck had received his permission to make these investigations

upon his land; had sought it with deepening deference and solicitude,

as if it were essential. And when at last it had been granted, it was

in disregard of previous refusals, in despite of his repugnance, and

his primitive sense of sacrilege. Thus he had been overborne by the

facile influence of this suave stranger, with his ready smile and his

pleasant eyes, and his frank off-hand speech. It must have been that

to work freely and openly in broad daylight had become a necessary

condition of Shattuck's success, for evidently he had been here

before--when the moon shone!

Whether it were because of some inward monition, which by an

unconscious process served Guthrie's interest, or some latent,

undeveloped suspicion astir in his mind, he gave no intimation of

his thought; he held himself plastic to the discovery which he felt

imminent in the air. He could not, however, meet her eyes; as he sought

an alternative, perhaps it was as happy an idea as any that could have

come at a more propitious and reflective moment to draw out one of the

pistols that he wore in his belt and turn it in his hand; he had an

incidental preoccupied air as he glanced successively into the empty

chambers.

"Did he find ennything _then_, d'ye know, Litt?"

"I dun'no'. I ain't seen him sence till las' night," she replied,

unsuspiciously.

He had snapped the barrel in place and silently sighted the pistol at

a flying bird, as if he had in view some experiment of marksmanship.

Moses had ceased his femininely domestic labors, with the wisp of flax

hanging motionless in his limp hand. Here was matter more to his mind,

attesting his inherent masculine taste; he winked very hard at every

sharp clash of the steel, but bent forward with wide uplifted eyes, a

tremulous, absorbed, open mouth, and watched the big man's attitude as

he held up the weapon to a line with his eye, his whole massive figure,

from the great slouch hat to his jingling spurs, clearly imposed upon

the fair morning sky.

[Illustration: "HE HAD SNAPPED THE BARREL IN PLACE."]

A pointer, who had been asleep under the house, had rushed out

upon recognizing the click of the cocking of a weapon, and stood

in tremulous, wheezing agitation, now scanning the prospect for

the threatened game and eagerly snuffing the air, now glancing up,

surprised at the abnormal inactivity of this presentment of the genus

sportsman.

"What makes ye 'low 'twar Shattuck, Litt?" Guthrie observed in the tone

of a casual gossip.

There was a touch of rose in her cheek. "Waal, I warn't sartain a-fust.

I 'lowed it _couldn't_ be. Till toler'ble late, arter the moon hed riz,

I hearn a pickaxe strikin' on rock up in the pygmy buryin'-ground"

(he noticed that she had discarded the colloquial "Leetle People" for

Shattuck's more scientific term), "an' then I knowed it couldn't be

nobody but him. I didn't say nothin' 'bout'n it afore, 'kase I didn't

know till las' night ez he hed got yer say-so ez he mought dig on

yer land." She looked up with an unsuspicious smile; then, with the

glow of mirth in her eyes, she burst suddenly into a peal of laughter.

"Baker Anderson would hev it ez 'twar _you-uns_ ez 'peared suddint at

the winder whilst I war a-singin' a song. I wisht ye could hev seen

Baker offerin' ter take down his rifle an' go arter ye fur hevin' gin

me an' Mis' Yates sech a skeer. Ye could run Baker with yer ramrod!

Baker 'lows yit ez 'twar you-uns. We-uns couldn't make out the man's

face clear; jes' seen it fur a minit ez he looked through the winder.

But ez soon ez I hearn that pick strike on the rock, I guessed mighty

easy who hed been hangin' roun' the porch listenin' ter the singin',

waitin' fur the moon ter rise."

A miracle could not have more stringently coerced his credulity; and,

in truth, the circumstances wore all the sleek probability of fact. No

man familiarized by song and story since the Middle Ages with the idea

of the cavalier lingering without the castle walls to hear a lady's

lute could have more definitely grasped its significance than did this

primitive lover. It lent a strong coherence to every word that Shattuck

had uttered; the praises of her beauty, to which he had hearkened with

such simple joy; of her mind, of her unique grace, so at variance with

the uncouth conditions of her life. And what new light was thrown

upon her strangely retentive memory hoarding Shattuck's words; her

eager determined vigilance in his behalf, from which the trump that

might summon the dead from their graves would be futile to lure her;

that radiant freshened beauty in her sapphire eyes! "Religion itself

couldn't make her look more like an angel in the eyes!" Guthrie had

said to himself, with a lover's alert and receptive recognition of an

embellished loveliness. And Shattuck had come, in good sooth, to listen

and linger without to hear her sing while he waited for the moon to

rise.

He remembered, with an angry quickening of his pulse, his own

simple-minded confidences to Shattuck yesterday in the barley fields.

What! in his unsuspicious folly he had even told the man how she talked

of him, how she treasured his words, how she valued his great learning,

for thus she was minded to regard those acquisitions which the more

staid and experienced people of the country-side esteemed crack-brained

fantasies. And somehow this reflection operated as a check upon the

bounding fury that possessed him; it held an element of self-reproach.

He had unwittingly revealed to this stranger the sentiment which

Letitia would have guarded as a sacred secret--if, indeed, she herself

were aware of it. His face was set and hard; but the strong hand

trembled that held the pistol, silent and empty and harmless enough

now, albeit so recently flinging out its fate-freighted balls and its

wild barbaric shriek.

"She never war gin ter 'settin' caps' arter folks, like other gals; she

sorter sets store on herse'f 'kase the common run o' boys didn't like

her. She feels too ch'ice fur enny or'nary cuss; an' I reckon she'd

be hoppin' mad--" And then he paused with the conviction that she did

not esteem Shattuck an "or'nary cuss." This revelation would probably

only result in facilitating an understanding between them. "Ef he ever

sees her agin," he said, between his set teeth. There recurred to him

suddenly his words yesterday, amongst the waving barley--that he had it

in his heart to kill any man who came between him and Letitia. He had

spoken them with other intentions, with the thought of Rhodes in his

mind; but Shattuck was warned, already warned. And if he had spoken too

freely, it was at least not equivocally. "Ef ever he sees her agin," he

once more muttered.

"What air you-uns sayin'?" she demanded, suddenly, all unsuspicious

of his train of thought. "Mose kin converse ez well ez that. The only

trouble with Mose's talk is that grown folks air too foolish ter

onderstan' it. Ain't it, Mose?"

But the child gave her no heed, still fixing his upturned gaze on the

pistol in Guthrie's hand, as eager of expression as the uplifted muzzle

of the dog, who writhed and wagged his tail, and wheezed about the

great boots.

Guthrie looked down at Letitia, his eyes changed and strange, and

little to be understood. She paused as her own encountered them,

holding the wisp of flax motionless in her hand, vaguely and

superficially aware that a crisis had supervened, albeit beyond her ken.

"I mus' be a-goin'," he said, absently, still looking at her, his eyes

freighted with his unread thoughts.

Their dull solemnity grated upon her mood, so far afield was it from

any standpoint yet revealed in his words. She resented his motionless,

intent, pondering survey.

She sought to shake off the responsive gravity his mien induced.

"Goin'!" she cried, her eyes growing brighter and deeper and darker as

they dilated. "Waal, we'll hev ter try ter spare ye. Waal! waal!" with

an affected sigh.

The familiar note of irony seemed to rouse him to more immediate

intention. He thrust his pistol in his belt, and with a nod turned away

down the path.

Moses, who could never be prevailed upon to greet a visitor, always

took welcome heed of departure. To his mind the dearest behest of

hospitality was speeding the parting guest. Without prompting, he sent

a jubilant cry of "Bye! bye!" after Guthrie's retreating form, and

beamed upon him with a damp and gummy sputtering smile, graced by all

his glittering teeth.

Letitia, too, gazed after the guest, whose manner had suddenly

presented an enigma. "Looked all of a suddint ez ef he hed fund suthin'

he didn't want, like a rattlesnake; or hed furgot suthin' he couldn't

do without, like his breakfast, or a thimble, or his brains."

He went slowly and thoughtfully along the dank path, over which the

heavy long-tasselled grasses leaned. Pinks bordered it here, and anon

the jimson weed; again it was enlivened by the glow of a great red

rose, with the essence of summer in its fresh breath, as it swayed on

a long, full-leaved, thorny wand. This clutched at his coat, and as

he paused to disengage the cloth, he looked back at the house--the

mountain looming behind it, with a horizontal band of mist athwart the

slope; the little roof still dank and shining with dew; the tiny porch

all wreathed with vines that stretched a surplusage of their blooming

lengths across to the window; the little glassless square where the

batten shutter swung. Here it was, he thought, that Shattuck had stood,

knee-deep in the lush thick grass, when the shutter was closed, and

colors were null, and the black night gloomed, and she sang within

while he waited, and the moon rose all too soon! He turned and looked

at the gorge, as if he expected to see there the pearly disk amidst

the dark obscurements of the night-shadowed mountains. It was instead

a vista of many gleaming lights: the sunshine on the river, and the

differing lustre of the water in the shadow; the fine crystalline green

of the cataract, and the dazzling white of the foam and the spray; the

luminous azure of the far-away peaks, and the enamelled glister of the

blue sky--all showing between the gloomy, sombre ranges close at hand.

And while he still looked, he mounted the horse at the gate and rode

away.