He waked before the sun was quite up the next morning. The pale light
reflected from the eastern sky was creeping in at the windows when he
opened his eyes. His mind was not clear, and at first he thought he was
in his room at his old home. In a half-dreaming state he fancied Michael
was at the door, telling him it was time to rise and catch a train. Next
he thought he heard Ruth's voice calling to him, as she was wont to do
at times before she was out of bed. Then the vague outlines of the old
furniture took clearer shape and he sat up. In a flash his new life had
reopened before him. He dressed hurriedly and went down-stairs. The
front door was open, and the dewy lawn lay in the yellowing light. The
peak of the nearest mountain pierced the fleecy clouds. He was turning
around the house to go to the cotton-field when the blind of Mary's room
was thrown open and she looked down and smiled.
"Good morning!" she cried. "I wonder if you are headed for that
cotton-patch?"
He answered that he was, and she laughed.
"Not before you have your breakfast," she commanded. "That is against
the rules. It will be ready soon. Wait for me. I'm coming right down."
He went to the veranda and saw her descending. When she came out into
the full light from the shadowy house he remarked the lines of care in
her face, and they threw a damper on his spirits.
"How did you rest?" she asked.
"Very well," he returned, "but I am afraid that you did not."
She was silent, her head downcast, and he wondered over the impulse that
had emboldened him to make such a personal comment. He was about to beg
her pardon, when she raised her face and looked at him confidingly.
"Oh, I know I show it, Mr. Brown," she exclaimed, "but I can't help it.
I've been half crazy all night long. I slept only a few minutes at a
time, and even in my sleep my fears clung to me. It is my brothers. I
have worried over them before, but never like this. From what I heard
yesterday the spree they are on is the worst they ever had. They were
with their vilest associates, moonshiners and gamblers, over at Carlin,
drinking harder than ever before."
Here Zilla came to the front door. Catching her mistress's eye, she
cried out, excitedly: "Young miss, I see er hoss en' buggy 'way down de
road. It got two mens in it. Looks ter me like de boys. Dey is whippin'
de hoss powerful en' ercomin' fast."
Ascending the veranda steps, Mary looked down the main road toward
Carlin. "Yes, it is my brothers," she said, frowning. "Why they are
hurrying so I can't make out. The horse looks as if it is about to
drop."
She said no more, but hastened to the front gate, where she stood, her
tense hands on the latch, waiting for the vehicle to arrive. In a moment
a panting, foaming bay horse was reined in at the gate and the two young
men sprang down from a ramshackle buggy.
"Where is father?" Kenneth, the older, a tall, dark young man, asked,
hurriedly.
"He is in the library, I think," his sister answered, "Kensy, what is
the matter?"
"Oh, don't ask me!" he cried, impatiently, a wild look in his eyes.
"Keep the horse there ready, Martin. But never mind. What's the use? It
is all in. We'll have to leave the main road, anyway. We must skip for
the mountains."
"Oh, brother, brother Kensy, what is it?" Mary cried, in sheer terror,
as she clutched his arm.
Drawing it from her impatiently, even roughly, he cried out to Zilla:
"Call father! Hurry! No, I'll find him."
"Oh, Martin, Martin, what is it?" and Mary turned to her younger
brother, who was short, rather frail-looking, and had blue eyes and
reddish hair.
"Nothing, nothing," he said, his glance following Kenneth into the
house. "Don't ask me, sis. It is all right."
"But I know something has gone wrong!" Mary cried. "You and Kensy look
it; you can't hide it. What is it?"
He shrugged his shoulders, lifted his brows, and then said, reluctantly:
"Well, we got in a little scrape, that's all, and had to make a break to
get away. The sheriff and a deputy are after us."
"After you! after you!" Mary gasped. "What have you done?"
Martin hesitated sullenly, his eyes on the grass.
"Tell yo' sister de trufe, boy," Aunt Zilla suddenly broke in. "Be
ershamed er yo'se'f, keepin' 'er awake all night wid worry. Tell 'er
what's de matter. Don't yer see she's half 'stracted over yo-all's
doin's?"
"Oh, well," he responded, "it was a little shooting-scrape. Ken and Tobe
Keith had a dispute in Gardener's pool-room about an hour ago. Tobe drew
a knife. Some say he didn't, but I saw it; I'm sure I saw it. I grabbed
him around the waist, and--well, Ken was a little full and had a gun,
and while I and Tobe were wrestling he fired."
"And killed him!" Mary cried. "Oh God, have mercy!"
"No, no, don't be a fool, sis! Please don't! He was just wounded
slightly, that's all."
"But why did you run away, then?" Mary's pale lips shook as the words
dropped from them.
"Because," he frowned--"because some of the mountain boys advised us to,
and Sheriff Frazier lived around the corner and had heard the shots.
This horse and buggy was loaned to us by Steve Pinkney. He'll be here
after them. Zilla, feed and water the horse, please. We've got to get
away in the mountains till--till we find out how Keith is."
Mary started to say something, but choked up. She put her arm about her
brother's neck, but he gently took it down.
"Don't make it worse than it is, sis dear," he faltered. "We are in
trouble, big trouble, this time, but we hardly knew what we were doing.
If the fellow lives, we will--"
"If he lives! My God! _if_ he lives!" Mary moaned.
Her father and her older brother were coming out on the veranda now. The
old gentleman had a book and manuscript under his handless arm. Charles
noted that he was not even pale, though a certain expression of
irritation rested on his patrician features.
"Yes, leave the horse," he was saying. "Get into the mountains. As you
say, you know a good hiding-place. I'll remember the directions to it,
and we'll get food to you somehow or other. It may not be serious. The
scoundrel was attacking you with a knife, you think?"
"Martin thought so," Kenneth answered, "but I'm not sure of it now.
Steve Pinkney says Martin was mistaken, and that is why he advised us to
run. I was drinking. My nerves are all shattered. I got mad when I saw
Keith and Martin struggling, and fired before I thought. I'm sorry, but
if is too late now. We must get away."
"Yes, and before somebody sees you here," Rowland said. "Are you
hungry?"
"Yes, but we can't wait," Kenneth answered. "Come on, Martin."
Mary had run to her older brother. She held out her arms; she was
sobbing in her white fluttering throat. He took her into his embrace,
drew her bare head to his shoulder, and stroked her hair.
"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."