He broke off, visibly struggling for composure; then he recommenced in increasing indignation: 'An' these hyar frien's o' mine in the Big Smoky, I'll be bound they hanker powerful arter them two hunderd dollars blood-money. I know ez I'd hev been tuk afore this, ef it warn't fur them consarns thar.' He nodded frowningly at the pistols. 'Them's the only frien's I hev got.'
The girl's voice trembled. ''Pears like ye mought count me in,' she said reproachfully.
'Naw,' he retorted sternly; 'ye go round hyar sorrowin' fur a man ez hev got nuthin' ter be afeared of but the devil.'
She made no reply, and her meekness mollified him.
'D'rindy,' he said, in an altered tone, and with the pathos of a keen despair, 'I hed fixed it in my mind a good while ago, when I could hev hed a house, an' lived like folks, stidd'er like a wolf in the woods, ter ax ye ter marry me; but I war hendered by gittin' skeered 'bout'n yer bein' all in favour o' Amos Jeemes, ez kem up ter see ye from Eskaqua Cove, an' I didn't want ter git turned off. Mebbe ef I hed axed ye then I wouldn't hev tuk ter goin' along o' Abednego Tynes an' sech, an' the killin' o' Joel wouldn't hev happened like it done. Would ye—would ye hev married me then?'
Her eyes flashed. 'Ye air fairly sodden with foolishness, Rick!' she exclaimed angrily. 'Air you-uns thinkin ez I'll 'low ez I would hev married a man four months ago ez never axed me ter marry, nohow?' Then, with an appreciation of the delicacy of the position and a conservation of mutual pride, she added, 'An' I won't say nuther ez I wouldn't marry a man ez hev never axed me ter marry, nohow.'
Somehow, the contrariety of the proprieties, as she translated them, bewildered and baffled him. Even had he been looking at her he might hardly have interpreted, with his blunt perceptions, the dewy wistfulness of the eyes which she bent upon him. The word might promise nothing now. Still she would have valued it. He did not speak it. His eyes were fixed on Chilhowee Mountain, rising up, massive and splendid, against the west. The shadows of the clouds flecked the pure and perfect blue of the sunny slopes with a dusky mottling of purple. The denser shade in the valley had shifted, and one might know by this how the day wore on. The dew had dried from the long, keen blades of the Indian corn; the grasshoppers droned among them. A lizard basked on a flat white stone hard by. The old ox dozed in the turn-row.
Suddenly Rick Tyler lifted his hand, with an intent gesture and a dilated eye. There came from far below, on the mountain road, the sound of a horse's hoof striking on a stone, again, and yet again. A faint metallic jingle—the air was so still now—suggested spurs. The girl's hand trembled violently as she stepped swiftly to his horse and took off the plough-gear. He had caught up a saddle that was lying in the turn-row, and as hastily buckled the girth about the animal.
'Ef that air ennybody a-hankerin' ter see me, don't you-uns be a-denyin' ez I hev been hyar, D'rindy,' he said, as he put his foot in the stirrup. 'I reckon they hev fund out by now ez I be in the kentry round about. But keep 'em hyar ez long ez ye kin, ter gin me a start.'
He mounted his horse, and rode noiselessly away along the newly turned mould of the furrow.
She stood leaning upon her plough-handles and silently watching him. His equestrian figure, darkly outlined against the far blue mountains and the intermediate valley, seemed of heroic size against the landscape, which was reduced by the distance to the minimum of proportion. The deep shadows of the woods encompassing the clearing fell upon him presently, and he, too, was but a shadow in the dusky monochrome of the limited vista. The dense laurel closed about him, and his mountain fastnesses, that had befriended him of yore, received him once again.
Then up and down the furrows Dorinda mechanically followed the plough, her pulses throbbing, every nerve tense, every faculty alert. She winced when she heard the frequent striking of hoofs upon the rocky slopes of the road below. She was instantly aware when they were silent, and the party had stopped to breathe the horses. She began accurately to gauge their slow progress.
''Tain't airish in nowise ter-day,' she said, glancing about at the still, noontide landscape; 'an' ef them air valley cattle they mus' git blowed mightily travellin' up sech steep mountings ez the Big Smoky.' She checked her self-gratulation. 'Though I ain't wantin' ter gloat on the beastis' misery, nuther,' she stipulated.
She paused presently at the lower end of the clearing, and looked down over the precipice, that presented a sheer sandstone cliff on one side, and on the other a wild confusion of splintered and creviced rocks, where the wild rose bloomed in the niches and the grape-vine swung. The beech-trees on the slope below conserved beneath their dense, umbrageous branches a tender green twilight. Loitering along in a gleaming silver thread by the roadside was a mountain rill, hardly gurgling even when with slight and primitive shift it was led into a hollow and mossy log, that it might aggregate sufficient volume in the dry season to water the horse of the chance wayfarer.
The first stranger that rode into this shadowy nook took off a large straw hat and bared his brow to the refreshing coolness. His grizzled hair stood up in front after the manner denominated 'a roach.' His temples were deeply sunken, and his strongly marked face was long and singularly lean. He held it forward, as if he were snuffing the air. He had a massive and powerful frame, with not an ounce of superfluous flesh, and he looked like a hound in the midst of the hunting season.
It served to quiet Dorinda's quivering nerves when he leisurely rode his big grey horse up to the trough, and dropped the rein that the animal might drink. If he were in pursuit he evidently had no idea how close he had pressed the fugitive. He was joined there by the other members of the party, six or eight in number, and presently a stentorian voice broke upon the air. 'Hello! Hello!' he shouted, hailing the log cabin.
Mirandy Jane, a slim, long-legged, filly-like girl of thirteen, with a tangled black mane, the forelock hanging over her wild, prominent eyes, had at that moment appeared on the porch. She paused, and stared at the strangers with vivacious surprise. Then, taking sudden fright, she fled precipitately, with as much attendant confusion of pattering footfalls, flying mane, and excited snorts and gasps as if she were a troop of wild horses.
'Granny! Granny!' she exclaimed to the old crone in the chimney-corner, 'thar's a man on a big grey critter down at the trough, an' I an't s'prised none ef he air a raider!'
The hail of the intruders was regarded as a challenge by some fifteen or twenty hounds that suddenly materialized among the beehives and the althea bushes, and from behind the ash-hopper and the hen-house and the rain-barrel. From under the cabin two huge curs came, their activity impeded by the blocks and chains they drew. These were silent, while the others yelped vociferously, and climbed over the fence, and dashed down the road.
The horses pricked up their ears, and the leader of the party awaited the onslaught with a pistol in his hand.
The old woman, glancing out of the window, observed this demonstration.
'He'll kill one o' our dogs with that thar shootin'-iron o' his'n!' she exclaimed in trepidation. 'Run, Mirandy Jane, an' tell him our dogs don't bite.'
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