The old woman, who had come out on the porch, stood gazing at the party, shading her eyes with her hands, and a long-range colloquy ensued.
'Good-mornin', madam,' said the man at the trough.
'Good-mornin', sir,' quavered the old crone on the mountain slope.
'I'm the sher'ff o' the county, madam, an' I'd like ter know ef——'
'Mirandy Jane,' the old woman interrupted, in a wrathful undertone, ''pears like I hev' hed the trouble o' raisin' a idjit in you-uns! Them ain't raiders, 'n nuthin' like it. Run an' tell the sher'ff we air dishin' up dinner right now, an' ax him an' his gang ter' light an' hitch, an' eat it along o' we-uns.'
The prospect was tempting. It was high noon, and the posse had been in the saddle since dawn. Dorinda, with a beating heart, remarked how short a consultation resulted in dismounting and hitching the horses; and then, with their spurs jingling and their pistols belted about them, the men trooped up to the house.
As they seated themselves around the table, more than one looked back over his shoulder at the open window, in which was framed, as motionless as a painted picture, the vast perspective of the endless blue ranges and the great vaulted sky, not more blue, all with the broad, still, brilliant noontide upon it.
'Ye ain't scrimped fur a view, Mis' Cayce, an' that's the Lord's truth!' exclaimed the officer.
'Waal,' said the old woman, as if her attention were called to the fact for the first time, 'we kin see a power o' kentry from this spot o' ourn, sure enough; but I dunno ez it gins us enny more chance o' ever viewin' Canaan.'
'It's a sight o' ground ter hev ter hunt a man over, ez ef he war a needle in a haystack,' and once more the officer turned and surveyed the prospect.
The room was overheated by the fire which had cooked the dinner, and the old woman actively plied her fan of turkey feathers, pausing occasionally to readjust her cap, which had a flapping frill, and was surmounted by a pair of gleaming spectacles. A bandana kerchief was crossed over her breast, and she wore a blue-and-white-checked homespun dress of the same pattern and style that she had worn here fifty years ago. Her hands were tremulous and gnarled, and her face was deeply wrinkled, but her interest in life was as fresh as Mirandy Jane's.
The great frame of the warping-bars on one side of the room was swathed with a rainbow of variegated yarn, and a spinning-wheel stood near the door. A few shelves, scrupulously neat, held piggins, a cracked blue bowl, brown earthenware, and the cooking utensils. There were rude gun-racks on the walls. These indicated the fact of several men in the family. It was the universal dinner-hour, yet none of them appeared. The sheriff reflected that perhaps they had their own sufficient reason to be shy of strangers, and the horses hitched outside advertised the presence and number of unaccustomed visitors within. When the usual appetizer was offered, it took the form of whisky in such quantity that the conviction was forced upon him that it was come by very handily. However, he applied himself with great relish to the bacon and snap-beans, corn dodgers and fried chicken, not knowing that Mirandy Jane, who was esteemed altogether second-rate, had cooked them, and he spread honey upon the apple-pie, ate it with his knife, and washed it down with buttermilk, kept cold as ice in the spring—the mixture being calculated to surprise a more civilized stomach.
Not even his conscience was roused—the first intimation of a disordered digestion. He listened to old Mrs. Cayce with no betrayal of divination when she vaguely but anxiously explained the absence of her son and his boys in the equivocal phrase, 'Not round about ter-day, bein' gone off,' and he asked how many miles distant was the Settlement, as if he understood they had gone thither. He was saying to himself, the brush whisky warming his heart, that the revenue department paid him nothing to raid moonshiners, and there was no obligation of his office to sift any such suspicion which might occur to him while accepting an unguarded hospitality.
He looked with somewhat appreciative eyes at Dorinda, as she went back and forth from the table to the pot which hung in the deep chimney-place above the smouldering coals. She had laid aside her bonnet. Her face was grave, her eyes were bright and excited; her hair was drawn back, except for the tendrils about her brow, and coiled, with the aid of a much-prized 'tuckin'-comb,' at the back of her head in a knot discriminated as Grecian in civilization. He remarked to her grandmother that he was a family man himself, and had a daughter as old, he should say, as Dorinda.
'D'rindy air turned seventeen, now,' said Mrs. Cayce disparagingly. 'It 'pears like ter me ez the young folks nowadays air awk'ard an' back'ard. I war married when I war sixteen—sixteen scant.'
The girl felt that she was indeed of advanced years, and the sheriff said that his daughter was not yet sixteen, and he thought it probable that she weighed more than Dorinda.
He lighted his pipe presently, and tilted his chair back against the wall.
'Yes 'm,' he said meditatively, gazing out of the window at the great panorama, 'it's a pretty big spot o' kentry ter hev ter hunt a man over. Now ef 'twar one o' the town folks we could make out ter overhaul him somehows; but a mounting boy—why, he's ez free ter the hills ez a fox. I s'pose ye hain't seen him hyar-abouts?'
'I hain't hearn who it air yit,' the old woman replied, putting her hand behind her ear.
'It's Rick Tyler; he hails from this deestric'. I won't be 'stonished ef we ketch him this time. The gov'nor has offered two hunderd dollars reward fur him, an' I reckon somebody will find it wuth while ter head him fur us.'
He was talking idly. He had no expectation of developments here. He had only stopped at the house in the first instance for the question which he had asked at every habitation along the road. It suddenly occurred to him as polite to include Dorinda in the conversation.
'Ye hain't seen nor hearn of him, I s'pose, hev ye?' inquired the sheriff, directly addressing her.
As he turned toward her he marked her expression. His own face changed suddenly. He rose at once.
'Don't trifle with the law, I warn ye,' he said sternly. 'Ye hev seen that man.'
Dorinda was standing beside her spinning-wheel, one hand holding the thread, the other raised to guide the motion. She looked at him pale and breathless.
'I hev seen him. I ain't onwillin' ter own it. Ye never axed me afore.'
The other members of the party had crowded in from the porch, where they had been sitting since dinner, smoking their pipes. The officer, realizing his lapse of vigilance and the loss of his opportunity, was sharply conscious, too, of their appreciation of his fatuity.
'Whar did ye see him?' he asked.
'I seen him hyar—this mornin'.' There was a stir of excitement in the group. 'He kem by on his beastis whilst I war a-ploughin', an' we talked a passel. An' then he tuk Pete's plough, ez war idle in the turn-row, an' helped along some; he run a few furrows.'
'Which way did he go?' asked the sheriff breathlessly.
'I dunno,' faltered the girl.
'Look-a-hyar!' he thundered, in rising wrath. 'Ye'll find yerself under lock an' key in the jail at Shaftesville, if ye undertake ter fool with me. Which way did he go?'
A flush sprang into the girl's excited face. Her eyes flashed.
'Ef ye kin jail me fur tellin' all I know, I can't holp it,' she said, with spirit. 'I kin tell no more.'
He saw the justice of her position. It did not make the situation easier for him. Here he had sat eating and drinking and idly talking, while the fugitive, who had escaped by a hair's-breadth, was counting miles and miles between himself and his lax pursuer. This would be heard of in Shaftesville—and he a candidate for re-election! He beheld already an exchange of significant glances among his posse. Had he asked that simple question earlier he might now be on his way back to Shaftesville, his prisoner braceleted with the idle handcuffs that jingled in