She knelt beside the bed, and when the Lusk girls, frightened at her long absence, crept timidly in to look for her, they found her strangling passionate sobs in its white covering.

"It's most twelve o'clock, Jude," whimpered Cliantha.

"Hit's come on to rain," supplied Pendrilla piteously, and a gusty spatter on the small-paned window confirmed her words, as the three girls went back into the room where the candle stood in the middle of the floor with the three portions of bread and salt about it.

The pale little sisters glanced at each other, and then at Judith, wistfully, timorously, almost more in terror of her than of their anomalous situation, this new, unknown Judith who scarce answered when she was spoken to, who continually failed them, who looked so strangely about her and wept so much.

"Pendrilly an' me has done put our pins in close to the bottom," Cliantha explained deprecatingly. "Hit wouldn't do any good to have Andy an' Jeff come trompin' in here—though I shore would love to see either or both of 'em this minute," she concluded forlornly, as they set the door ajar and the long slanting lines of rain began to drive obliquely in at the opening.

"Push the candle back whar the draught won't git a fair chance at it," quavered Pendrilla. "We're obliged to have the do' open, or what comes cain't git in. An' we mustn't ne'er a one of us say a word from now on, or hit'll break the charm."

Judith moved the candle and bent to thrust her pin in, close to the top where the melting wax might soon free it, concentrating all her soul in a passionate cry that Creed should come to her or send her some sign. Then she crouched on the floor next to Pendrilla and nearest to the door, and the three waited with pale faces.

The wavering light of the candle, shaken by gusts which brought puffs of mist in with them, projected huge, grotesque shadows of the three heads, and set them dancing upon the walls. The hound-pup raised his head, cocked his ears dubiously, and whined under his breath.

"What's that?" gasped Cliantha. "Didn't you-all hear somethin'?"

Judith was staring at the candle flame and made no reply. Her big dark eyes had the look of one self-hypnotised.

"Oh, Lordy! Ye ortn't to talk at a dumb supper—but I thort I hearn somebody walkin' out thar in the rain!" chattered Pendrilla.

The old house creaked and groaned in the rising autumn storm, as old houses do. The rain drummed on the roof like fingers tapping. The wind stripped dry leaves from the bough, or scooped them up out of the hollows where they lay, and carried them across the window, or drove them along the porch, in a gliding, whispering flight that was infinitely eerie.

In their terror the girls looked to Judith. They saw that she was not with them. Her gaze was on the pin in the candle. Back over her heart swept the sweetness of her first meeting with Creed. She could see him stand talking to her, the lifted face, the blue eyes—should she ever see them again?

Then suddenly the flame twisted and bent, the tallow melted swiftly on one side, and Judith's pin fell to the floor.

"Hit's a-comin'!" hissed Cliantha frantically.

"Oh, Lord! I wish 't we hadn't—" Pendrilla moaned.

The dog uttered a protesting sound between a growl and a yelp. He raised on his forelegs, and the hair of his head and neck bristled.

Outside, a heavy stumbling step came up the walk. It halted at the half-open door. That door was flung back, and in the square of dripping darkness stood Creed Bonbright, his face death white, his eyes wide and fixed, the rain gemming his uncovered yellow hair.

A moment he stood so, and the three stared at him. Then with a swish of leaves in the wind and a spatter of rain in their faces, the candle blew out. The girls screamed and sprang up. The hound backed into his corner and barked furiously. Whatever it was, it had crossed the threshold and was in the room with them.

"Jude—Jude!" shrieked Cliantha. "Run! Come on, Pendrilly!"

Judith felt a wavering wet hand fumbling toward her in the darkness. It clasped hers; the arm went around her; she raised her face, and the cold lips of the visitant met her warm tremulous ones.

For an instant she had no thought but that Creed had returned from the dead to claim her—and she was willing to go. Then she was aware of a swift rush, as the fleeing girls went past them, and the patter of the hound's feet following. Slowly the newcomer's weight sagged against her; he crumpled and went to the floor, dragging her down in his fall.

"Girls! Clianthy! Pendrilly!" she cried as she crouched there, clinging to the prostrate form. "Don't leave me—it's Creed himself. You got to he'p me!"



But the girls were gone like frightened hares. As she got to her feet in the doorway she could hear the sound of their flying footsteps down the lane. All was dead still in the room behind her, yet only an ear as fine as hers could have distinguished those light, receding footfalls that finally melted into the far multitudinous whisper and rustle of the storm.

She turned back in the dark and knelt down beside him, passing a light, tender hand over his face and chest. He breathed. He was a living man.

"Creed," she whispered loud and desperately. There was no movement or response.

"Creed," raising her voice. "O my God! Creed, darlin' cain't you hear me? It's me. It's Jude—poor Jude that loves you so—cain't you answer her?"

There came no reply. She lifted the cold hand, and when she let go of it, it fell. She leaped to her feet in sudden fear that he might die while she delayed here. With trembling fingers she struck a match and lit her candle. Her eye fell on the two pins the girls had thrust in it and named for Andy and Jeff. With a swift motion she plucked them out and threw them on the floor. She looked from the prostrate figure to the bed in the corner. No—she couldn't lift him to lay him there; but she ran and brought pillows and covers, raising his head upon the one, lapping him softly in the other.

When all was done that she could do, there was the instant need to hurry home for help. She hated terribly to leave him alone in the dark, yet a lighted candle with a man so ill was a risk that she dared not run—he might move about and set the house on fire. When she closed the darkened room with its stark figure lying under the white covers, her heart sank and sank. She must turn the key upon him. There was no good in hesitating. Only her strong will, her high courage, sustained her as she locked the door, and turning ran, with feet that love and terror winged, toward her own home. The rain drenched her; the darkness seemed a thing palpable; she slipped and fell, got to her feet and ran on. Jephthah Turrentine, asleep in his own cabin, heard the sound of beating palms against his door, and a voice outside in the dark and the rain that cried upon him.

"Uncle Jep! Uncle Jep! For God's sake get up quick and help me. Creed Bonbright's come home to his house, and I think he's dead or dyin' over there."



Chapter XXIV

A Case of Walking Typhoid

"Uh—huh!" said the old man as he straightened up after a long examination of Creed. "I thort so. He's got a case o' walkin' typhoid, an' looks like he's been on his feet with it till hit's plumb wore him out."

He stood staring down at the prostrate figure, which had neither sound nor movement, the fluttering breath of which seemed scarcely to stir the chest.

"Walkin' typhoid," he repeated. "I've met up with some several in my lifetime. Cur'ous things. His wound looks to be healed. Reckon he's been puny along ever sence he got that ball in his shoulder, and hit's ended up in this here spell of fever."

"Will he die, Uncle Jep?" whispered Judith, crouching beside him, her dark eyes roving desperately from the still form to her uncle's countenance. "What must we do for him?"

"N-no—I reckon he has a chance," hesitated Jephthah. Then, glancing at her white, miserable face, "an' ef he has, hit's to git him away from here an' into bed right. Lord, I wish 't the boys had been home to he'p us out. Well, we'll have to do the best we can."

As he spoke he put the word into action, getting a length of home-made carpet to put in the bottom of the waggon before he should lay in the feather-bed upon which Creed was to rest. As he worked, despite the look of acute anxiety, the old man's eye was brighter, his step was freer, his head was borne more erect, than Judith had seen it since the trouble came.

Silent, efficient, careful, experienced, he managed with her help to lift the unconscious man into the waggon and place him, his head in Judith's lap, for the journey home.

"You mind now, Judy," he admonished, almost sternly, "ef he comes to hisse'f you speak to him mighty quiet and pleasant-like. Don't you set to cryin'—don't you make no fuss. 'Tain't every gal I'd trust thisaway. Nothin' worse for a sick man than to get him excited." He took the lines and drove with infinite care and caution, walking beside the horse.

But his warning was unnecessary; Creed never roused from the lethargy in which his senses were locked. They got him safely home, the old man undressed him and laid him comfortably in that big show-bed in the front room that was given to any guest of honour.

Morning was breaking when Judith, coming into the kitchen, found Andy and Jeff sitting by the fire, and Dilsey Rust in charge.

"Yo' uncle sont fer me," the old woman said. "He 'lowed he needed yo' he'p takin' keer o' Bonbright."

Judith sat with Creed while the others had breakfast. When her uncle went out, closing the door softly behind him, leaving her alone with her recovered treasure, she went and knelt down by the bed, and looked at its silent occupant with a bursting heart.

Here was Creed, Creed for whom she had longed and prayed. He had come back to her. She stared at the wasted face, the transparent temples where the blue veins showed through, the black circles beneath the lashes of the closed eyes. No, no, this was not Creed, this dying man who mocked her longing with a semblance of her lover's return!

There was a sound at the door. Andy and Jeff came awkwardly in, and while they all stood looking, Creed's eyes opened suddenly upon them. Andy put out a hand swiftly.

"I'm mighty sorry for—for all that chanced," he said huskily.

"So 'm I," Jeff instantly seconded him.

Creed looked at them both with a little puzzled drawing of the brows; then the ghost of a smile flickered across his lips, and his hand that lay on the covers moved weakly toward theirs.

"It's all right," he said, scarcely above a whisper—the first words he had uttered. "I told—Aunt Nancy—you were good—boys—" he faltered to a hesitating close, his eyelids drooped over the tired eyes; but they flashed open once more with a smile that included Judith and her uncle standing back of the two.

"You're all—mighty—good—to me," said Creed Bonbright. And again he sank into that lethargic sleep.

As the day advanced came the visitors that are the torment of a sick-room in the country. It would scarcely have been thought that a bare land like that could produce so many. Finally Judith went to her uncle and begged that Creed be no longer made a show of, and that old Dilsey set out food in the other room and entertain those who came, without promising that they should see the sick man.

"Uh—huh," agreed Jephthah, understandingly, "I reckon yo' about right, Jude. Creed's obliged to lay there like a baby an' sleep ef he's to have any chance for his life. I don't want to fall out with the neighbours, but we'll see if we cain't make out with less visitin'."

But this prohibition was not supposed to apply to Iley Turrentine, a member of the family. About eight o'clock that morning, having then for the first time heard of the arrival at the cabin, she came hurrying across the slope with the baby on her hip. Long abstinence had made keen that temper of hers, and here was a situation where virtue itself cried to arms. She was eager to give Creed Bonbright a piece of her mind.

"You cain't go in unless'n you'll promise to be plumb quiet—not to open yo' mouth," Judith told her sharply. "Uncle Jep ain't here right now—but that's what he said."

"Don't Bonbright know folks? Cain't a body talk to him? Is he plumb outen his head?" demanded Iley, somewhat taken aback.

"He knew some of us a while ago," admitted Judith, "but mostly he doesn't notice nothing—jest stares right in front of him, and Uncle Jep said we mustn't let him be talked to nor werried."

The big red-headed woman, considerably lowered in note, stepped inside the door of the sick-room, hushing the child in her arms. A moment she stood staring at the bed and its single occupant, at the pale face on the pillow, then she burst suddenly into tempestuous sobs and fled.

Judith followed her out.

"What's the matter, Iley? You never set much store by Creed Bonbright—what you cryin' about?" she asked.

"Hit's—Huldy," choked the sister. "I reckon you thort I talked mighty big about the business the last time you an' me had speech consarnin' hit; but the facts air that I don't know a thing about whar she's at, nor how she's doin'. Judy, ef yo' a-goin' to take keer o' the man, cain't ye please ax him for me when did he see Huldy last, an'—an' is they wedded?"

Judith assented. She knew what her uncle would think of such an inquiry being put to the sick man, yet her own heart so fiercely demanded knowledge on this point that she promised Iley she would ask the question as soon as she dared.

The week that followed was a strange one to active Judith Barrier, used to out-door life under the sky for such a large part of her days. Now those same days were bounded by the four walls of a sick-room, the sole matter of importance in them whether the invalid took his gruel well, whether he had seemed better, whether her uncle spoke encouragingly of the eventful outcome of this illness. Old Jephthah himself nursed Creed, and Judith was but a helper; yet, such was her torture of uncertainty, of anxiety, that she often left to go to her own room and get some sleep, only to return and beg that she might be allowed to sit outside the threshold for the rest of the night and be ready if she were needed.

"Ain't no use wearin' yourself out thataway," her uncle used to say kindly. "That won't do Creed no good, nor you neither. I wish to the Lord I had Nancy here to he'p me!"

For in this day of real need he dropped all banter about Nancy's value in sick-room practice, and longed openly for her assistance. Creed had been in the house nearly a week and was showing marked improvement, when Judith got a message from Blatch Turrentine—Would she be at the draw-bars 'long about sundown? He had something to tell her.

She paid no attention to the request, but it put her in mind to do finally what she had long contemplated—write to her cousin Wade. It was but a short scrawl, stating that Creed Bonbright was sick at their house, and not able to tell them anything concerning Huldah, and that Iley and the others were troubled. Would Wade please ask information in Hepzibah, and write to his affectionate cousin.

Every day Iley made a practice of coming up and sitting dejectedly in the kitchen till Judith entered the room, when she would draw her mysteriously to one side and say:

"Have ye axed him yet? What did he tell ye? I'm plumb wo' out and heart-broke' about it, Jude."

Though Judith realised fully just how much of this display proceeded from a desire on Iley's part for notice, yet her own passionate, rebellious heart seconded the idle woman, and allowed the continual harping on that string to finally drive her to the set determination that, as soon as Creed could talk to her at all, she would ask him about Huldah.

Had she lacked resolution, the patient himself would have supplied and hardened it. About this time he developed a singular form of low delirium in which he would lie with closed eyes, murmuring—murmuring—murmuring to himself in a hurried, excited whisper. And always the burden of his distress was:

"I must get to her. Where is she? It's a long ways. Oh, I've got to get to her—there's nobody else."

Kneeling by his bed, her burning gaze upon his shut eyes and moving lips, Judith racked her soul with questioning. Often she heard her own name in those fevered whisperings; once he said with sudden determination, "I'm going home." But she listened in vain for mention of Huldah.

And what might that mean? All that she hoped? Or all that she dreaded? Oh, she could not bear this; she must know; she must—must—must ask him.

The Evil One, having provided the counsel, was not slow in following it up with the necessary opportunity. Judith was sitting with Creed alone, on a Wednesday night—he had come to them the preceding Tuesday. Her uncle being worn out had planned to sleep till midnight, thus dividing the watch with her. About eleven o'clock Creed opened his eyes and asked in what seemed to her a fairly natural tone for a drink. She brought it to him, and when he had drank he began speaking very softly.

"I'm glad I came back to the mountains," he said in a weak, whispering voice. "I promised you I'd come, and I did come, Judith."

"Yes," answered Judith, putting down the glass and seating herself at the bedside, taking his hand and stroking it softly, studying his face with intent, questioning eyes. "You know where you are now, don't you, Creed?"

He smiled at her.

"I'm in the front room at your house where we-all danced the night of the play-party," he said. "I loved you that night, Judith—only I hadn't quite found out about it."

The statement was made with the simplicity of a child—or of a sick man. It went over Judith with a sudden, sweet shock. Then her jealous heart must know that it was really all hers. Nerve racked as only a creature of the open can be after weeks of confinement in a sick-room, torn with the possessive passion of her earth-born temperament, she stood up suddenly and asked him in a voice of pain that sounded harsh and menacing,

"Creed, whar's Huldy?"

"I don't know," returned Creed tremulously. The blue eyes in their great hollows came up to her face in a frightened gaze. Instantly they lost their clearness; they clouded and filmed with that look of confusion which had been in them from the first.

"You're married to her—ain't you?" choked Judith, horrified at what she had done, loathing herself for it, yet pushed on to do more.

"Yes," whispered Creed miserably. "Sit down by me again, Judith. Don't be mad. What are you mad about? I forget—there was awful trouble, and somebody was shot—oh, how they all hate me!"

The fluttering moment of normal conditions was gone. The baffled, confused eyes closed; the thin hands began to fumble piteously about the covers; the pale lips resumed their rapid motion, while from between them flowed the old, swift stream of broken whispers.

Judith had quenched the first feeble flame of intelligence that flickered up toward her. She remained a moment staring down at her handiwork, then covered her face, and burst out crying. An ungentle grasp descended upon her shoulder. Her uncle, standing tall and angry behind her, thrust her from the room.

"Thar now!" he said with carefully repressed violence, lest his tones should disturb the sick man. "You've raised up a pretty interruption with my patient. I 'lowed I could trust you, Jude. What in the world you fussin' with Creed about? For God's sake, did you see him? You've nigh-about killed him, I reckon. Didn't I tell you not to name anything to him to werry him?"

"He says he's married Huldy," said Judith in a strangled voice.

"Say! He'd say anything—like he is now," retorted her uncle, exasperated. "An' he'd shore say anything on earth that was put in his mouth. I don't care if he's married forty Huldy's; what I want is for him to get well. Lord, I do wish I had Nancy here, and not one of these fool young gals with their courtin' business and their gettin' jealous and having to have a rippit with a sick man that don't know what he's talkin' about," he went on savagely.

But high-spirited Judith paid no attention to the cutting arraignment.

"Do you think that's true—oh, Uncle Jep, do you reckon he didn't mean it?" was all she said.

"I don't see as it makes any differ," retorted her uncle, testily. "Marryin' Huldy Spiller ain't no hangin' matter—but hit'll cost that boy his life ef you fuss with him and git him excited and all worked up."

Judith turned and felt her way blindly up the steep little stair to her own room. That night she prayed, not in a formulated fashion, but to some vague, over-brooding goodness that she hoped would save her from cruelty to him she loved.

The next morning Creed was plainly set back in his progress toward sound rationality, though there seemed little physical change. He recognised no one, and was much as he had been on those first days. While this condition of affairs held, and it lasted nearly a week, there was no need for Jephthah to repeat his caution. But one morning when Judith went in to relieve her uncle, Creed smiled at her again with eyes that knew.

As soon as they were alone together, he asked her to come and sit by him, and told her with tolerable clearness how he had followed Blatch Turrentine onto the train at Garyville, how he had fainted there, and only recovered consciousness when they were halfway to the next station.

"I was too bad off for them to leave me anywhere, and they carried me plumb to Atlanta. I was in the hospital there a long while. Looks like I might have written to you—but I thought the best I could do was to let you alone—I'd made you trouble enough," he ended with a wistful, half-hopeful glance at her face.

Judith, taught by bitter experience, tried to meet this with the gentle, reassuring cheerfulness of the nurse. It was all right. He mustn't talk too much. He was here now. They didn't need any letter. But strive as she might she could not keep out of her voice a certain alien tone; and afterward the bitter thought dogged her that he had told her nothing definite. She knew nothing, after all, about his relations with Huldah; the girl might even, as Blatch declared, have been on the train, and gone to Atlanta with him, and he have held back this information.

Perhaps, considering her temperament, Judith did as well as could have been expected in the three days that followed—days in which Creed seemed to make fair physical gain, but to grow worse and worse mentally. Never once did she put into words the query that ate into her very soul, quite innocent of the fact that it spoke in every tone of her voice, in every movement of her head or hand, and kept the ailing mind to which she ministered at tremble with the strain to answer.

On the fourth day, fretted past endurance by the situation, Judith permitted herself some oblique hints and suggestions, on the heels of which she left to prepare his breakfast. Returning to the sick-room with the bowl of broth, she met the strange, unexpected, unsolicited reply to all these withheld demands. Creed greeted her with a half-terrified smile.

"Did you meet her goin' out?" he asked.

"Did I meet who, Creed?" inquired Judith, setting the bowl down on a splint-bottomed chair, spreading a clean towel across the quilts, and preparing for his breakfast. "Has there been somebody in here to see you a'ready?"

"It was only Huldah," deprecated Creed. "You said—you asked—and she just slipped in a minute after you went out."

Judith straightened up with so sudden a movement that the chair rocked and the contents of the bowl slopped dangerously.

"Which way did she go?" came the sharp challenge.

"Out that door," indicating with an air of childlike alarm the front way which led directly into the yard.

Judith ran and flung it open. Nobody was in sight. Heedless of the sharp wintry air that blew in upon the patient, she stood searching the way over toward Jim Cal's cabin.

"I don't see her," she called across her shoulder. "Mebbe she's in the house yet."

She closed the door reluctantly and came back to the bedside.

"No," said Creed plaintively, lifting a doubtful hand to his confused head, "she ain't here. She allowed you-all were mad at her, and I reckon she'll keep out of sight."

"But she had to come to see you—her wedded husband," accused Judith sternly.

He nodded mutely with a motion of assent. He seemed to hope that the admission would please Judith. The broth stood untouched, cooling on the chair.

"Is she stayin' down at Jim Cal's?" came Judith's next question.

"She never named it to me where she was stayin'," returned Creed wearily. As before, Judith's ill-concealed anger and hostility was as a sword of destruction to him; yet now he had more strength to endure with. "She just come—and now she's gone." He closed his eyes, and leaned his head back among his pillows. The white face looked so sunken that Judith's heart misgave her.

"Won't you eat your breakfast now, Mr. Bonbright?" she said stiffly.

"I don't want any breakfast, thank you. I can't eat," returned Creed very low.

Judith pressed her lips hard together to refrain from mentioning Huldah again. She knew that she had injured Creed, yet for the life of her she could not get out one word of kindness. Finally she took her mending and sat down within sight of the bed, deceiving herself into the belief that he slept.

The next day an almost identical scene pushed Judith's strained nerves to the verge of hysteria. In the afternoon when the old man came to relieve her he returned almost immediately from the sick-room, called her downstairs once more, and complained of Creed's progress.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Look like somethin' has went wrong here right lately. Ever sence you got that fool notion in yo' head that Creed and Huldy was man and wife, he's been goin' down in his mind about as fast as his stren'th come up. The best thing you can do is to put it out of yo' head."

"Well, they air wedded," returned Judith passionately. "They ain't no use to fergit it, 'caze she's done been here—she's down at Jim Cal's right now; and when we-all are out of the room he says she slips in to visit him."

The girl stood trembling; her rounded cheeks that used to blush with such glowing crimson were white; she was a figure to move any one who loved her to pity; but the old man regarded her with strong contempt.

"Good Lord—is that what's ailin' ye?" he burst out. "You might at least have had the sense you was born with, and asked somebody is Huldy here. You know in reason it shows that Creed's out of his head—when he tells you a tale like that. The Lord knows there's no fool in the world like a jealous woman. Do ye want to kill the boy?—or run him crazy?"

Judith struggled with her tears.

"Uncle Jep," she finally choked out without actually sobbing. "I won't say another word—now that I know. I ain't got nothin' agin' Creed Bonbright, nor his wife—why should I have?"

Some ruth came into the scornful glance those old black eyes bent on her.

"You're a good gal, Jude," Jephthah said softly, "ef ye air somethin' unusual of a fool in this business. But I reckon I got to take this boy out o' yo' hands someway. I'm obliged to leave Creed with ye for one short while—an' agin' my grain it goes to do it—an' go fetch him a nurse that won't take these tantrums. But mind, gal, it's Creed's reason I'm leavin' with you; mebbe his life—but sartain shore his reason. I won't be gone to exceed two days. Ye can hold out that long, cain't ye?"

"I'll do the best I can, Uncle Jep," said Judith with unexpected mildness. "An' ef Huldy 's here——"

"My Lord!" broke in Jephthah. "Why don't ye go to Iley an' set yo' mind at rest about Huldy?"

"Hit is at rest," returned Judith darkly. "When Creed come here, Iley was at me every day to ask him whar was Huldy; but I take notice that sence that day he named Huldy visitin' him Iley ain't been a-nigh the place."

The old man heaved a heavy sigh.

"Well, ye say ye'll do yo' best? Hit's apt to be a good best, Jude. In two days, ef I live, I'll be back here, an' I'll bring he'p."



Chapter XXV

A Perilous Passage

It was a strange thing to Judith to be left alone in the house, in charge of it and the sick man. Old Dilsey did the cooking and all the domestic labour. Had Wade been at home, and the patient any other than Creed Bonbright, she would have had a capable assistant at the nursing. Andy and Jeff tried to be as kind as they could. But they were an untamed, untrained pair, helpless and hapless at such matters, and their approaching wedding kept them often over at the Lusk place. From Iley Judith held savagely aloof.

It was on the second morning of her uncle's absence that Dilsey Rust brought again that message from Blatch, and Judith caught at it. She had done her best; she had refrained from any questions; but the night before Creed told her without asking that Huldah had been in to see him twice again. As her patient's physical strength notably increased, his appeal to her tender forbearance of course lessened, and the raw insult of the situation began to come home to her.

She put a shawl over her head and ran swiftly down through the chill November weather to the draw-bars, where in the big road outside Turrentine slouched against a post waiting for her. The man spoke over his shoulder.

"Howdy, Jude—you did come at last."

"Ef yo' goin' to say anything to me, you'll have to be mighty quick, Blatch," she notified him, shivering. "I got to get right back."

"They's somebody new—and yet not so new—a-visitin' in the Turkey Tracks that you'd like to know of," he prompted coolly. "Ain't that so?"

"Huldy," she gasped, her dark eyes fixed upon his grey ones.

He nodded.

"I 'lowed you'd take an intrust in that thar business, an' I thort as a friend you ort to be told of it," he added virtuously.

"Where's she at?" demanded Judith.

"Over at my house," announced Turrentine easily, with a backward jerk of his head.

"At yo' house!" echoed Judith; "at yo' house! Why, hit ain't decent."

"Huh," laughed Blatch. "I don't know about decent. She was out thar takin' the rain; she had nobody to roof her; an' I bid her in, 'caze I'm in somewhat the same fix myse'f."

"No one to roof her," repeated Judith. "What's henderin' her from comin' over this side the Gulch?"

"Well, seein' the way she's done Wade I reckon she 'lows she'd better keep away from his pap's house. She's at the outs with Iley—Jim Cal's lady sont her word she needn't never show her face thar agin. She gives it out to everybody that'll listen at her talk that she's skeered o' you 'count o' Bonbright."

Judith studied his face with half-incredulous eyes.

"How long has she been there?" she interrogated keenly.

Turrentine seemed to take time for reflection.

"Lemme see," he ruminated, "she come a Wednesday night. Hit was rainin', ef you remember, an' I hearn something outside, and it scairt me up some, fer fear it was revenuers. When I found hit was Huldy, I let her in, an she's been thar ever sence."

Wednesday night! It was Thursday morning that Creed had first announced the visit of his wife. Oh, it must be true! Judith trembled all through her vigorous young body with a fury of despair. As always, Blatchley had found the few and simple words to bid her worser angel forth. She even felt a kind of hateful relish for the quarrel. They had tricked her. They had made a fool of her. She had suffered so much. She longed to be avenged.

"Judy," murmured Blatch softly, bending toward her but not laying a hand upon her, "you white as a piece o' paper, an' shakin' from head to foot. That's from stayin' shet up in the house yonder nussin' that feller Bonbright night an' day like a hirelin'. W'y, he never did care nothin' for ye only becaze ye was useful to him. Ye stood betwixt him an' danger; ye he'ped him out when he needed it wust. An' he had it in mind to fool ye from the first. Now him and Huldy Spiller has done it. Don't you let 'em. You show 'em what you air. I've got a hoss out thar, and Selim's down in the stable. I'll put yo' saddle on him. Git yo' skirt, honey. Let's you and me ride over to Squire Gaylord's and be wedded. Then we'll have the laugh on these here smart folks that tries to fool people."

He leaned toward her, all the power of the man concentrated in his gaze. Perhaps he had never wanted anything in his twenty-seven years as he now wanted Judith Barrier and her farm and the rehabilitation that a union with her would give him. Once this girl's husband, he could curtly refuse to rent to Jephthah Turrentine, who had, he knew, no lease. He could call into question the old man's stewardship, and even up the short, bitter score between them. He could reverse that scene when he was sent packing and told to keep his foot off the place.

"Judy," he breathed, deeply moved by all this, "don't ye remember when we was—befo' ever this feller come—Why, in them days I used to think shore we'd be wedded."

Judith rested a hand on the bars and, lips apart, stared back into the eager eyes of the man who addressed her. Blatchley had always had some charm for the girl. Power he did not lack; and his lawlessness, his license, which might have daunted a feebler woman, liberated something correspondingly brave and audacious in her. He had been the first to pay court to her, and a girl does not easily forget that.

For a moment the balance swung even. Then it bore down to Blatch's side. She would go. Yes, she would. Creed might have Huldah. The girl might be his wife, or his widow. She, Judith Barrier, would show them—she would show them. Her parted lips began to shape to a reckless yes. The word waited in her mind behind those lips all formed. Her swift imagination pictured to her herself riding away beside Blatch leaving the sick man who had been cause of so many humiliations to her to die or get well. Blatch, watching narrowly, read the coming consent in her face. His hand stole forward toward the draw-bars.

Her salvation was in a very small and commonplace thing. The picture of herself riding beside Blatch Turrentine brought back to her, with an awakening shock, the recollection of herself and Creed riding side by side, her arm across his shoulder, his drooping head against it. How purely happy she had been then—how innocent—how blest! What were these fires of torment that raged in her now? No, no! That might be lost to her; but even so, she could not decline from its dear memory to a mating like this. Without a word she turned and ran back to the house, never looking over her shoulder in response to the one or two cautious calls that Blatch sent after her.

Judith's day was mercifully full of work. When Creed did not require her, Dilsey demanded help and direction, and one or two errands from outside kept her mind from sinking in upon itself. It was night-fall, Andy was lending her his awkward aid in the sick-room, when Jeff came in and beckoned the two of them out mysteriously.

"How's Bonbright this evenin', Jude? Do you reckon I could have speech with him?" he asked in a troubled tone.

Judith shook her head. Her own near approach to absolute failure in her charge that morning made her the more punctilious now.

"No." She spoke positively. "Uncle Jep said he wasn't to be werried about anything."

"Why, he's settin' up some, ain't he?" said the boy in surprise. "I thort he looked right peart."

"Yes," agreed Judith dejectedly, "he's gettin' his strength all right; he does look well. But you ax him questions, or name anything to him to trouble him, an' it throws him right back. Uncle Jep says hit's more his mind than his body now. What is it ye want from Creed? Cain't I tend to it?"

"I don't reckon a gal like you could he'p any," Jeff said doubtfully. His eye wandered toward his twin. "I reckon this is men's business. I've got word that Huldy Spiller—or some say Huldy Bonbright—is over at Blatch's cabin, and he's got her shut up."

Judith's heart gave a great leap as of terror; the thing was out at last—people knew it. Then that heavily beating heart sank sickeningly; what difference to her, though all the world knew it? Yet she held to her trust.

"Oh, shore not, Jeff. You cain't nigh talk to him about nothin' like that," she maintained. "Uncle Jep made me promise that nothin' should be named to him to excite him."

"Well, then," pursued Jeff, "pappy not bein' here, nor Wade, and Jim Cal over at Spiller's, an' the gal not havin' no men folks in reach, me an' Andy has got to look after this thing. Fact is, Blatch sent word that ef we wanted her we could come over and git her."

"I don't know as we do want her—I don't know as we do," put in Andy. "And we both promised pappy that we wouldn't set foot on the land whilst Blatch had it rented."

"Then ag'in," debated Jeff—"Oh, no, buddy, we cain't leave the gal thar. We're plumb obliged to find out if she wants to come away, anyhow."

Andy turned to his cousin.

"What do you say, Jude? Ort we to go?"

Judith locked her hands hard together and held down her head, fighting out her battle. She longed to say no. She longed to shout out that Huldah Spiller might take care of herself, since she had been so unwomanly as to run after men and bring all this trouble on them. What she did say, at the end of a lengthened struggle, was:

"Yes, I think both of you ort to go. Can it be did quiet? You got to think of her good name."

Jeff nodded.

"Well, how air we goin' to be sure that gal's over there?" inquired Andy, still half reluctant.

"Oh, she's there," returned Judith heavily; and when the boys regarded her with startled looks, "I ain't seen her, but she's been on the mountain since Thursday. She's been slippin' over to visit—her—Creed named it to me then."

"Well that does settle it," Andy concluded. "Reckon Blatch has shut her up for pure meanness. When was we to go? Was there any time sot?"

"To-night," Jeff informed them. "Any time after ten o'clock'll do—that was the word I got."

"Well, that'll be all right," agreed Andy; "I can fix Creed up for the night, and ef we git Huldy away in the dark nobody need know of the business—not even Bonbright."

A slow flush rose in Judith's pale cheeks. But she offered no comment on this aspect of the case. She only said:

"Just do what you think best, and don't name it to me again, please." Then, as both boys looked wonderingly at her, she added haltingly, "I've got enough to werry over—with a sick man here on my hands, an' Uncle Jep gone."

She went to her room. When at midnight she slipped down as of custom to see how all fared in the sick-room, she found the patient sleeping quietly, and Andy ready for the trip across the Gulch. The boys were going unarmed; they felt no fear of treachery on Blatch's part—it could profit him nothing to injure either of them in so public a way, and indeed he had never shown them any ill-will.



Chapter XXVI

His Own Trap

"I reckon that'll about do for you, my pretty young men," remarked Blatchley Turrentine as he put the last knot in the line with which he was securing Andy to a splint-bottomed chair.

His concluding words were the refrain of a familiar old ballad, and he continued to hum this as he straightened up and set his hands on his hips, regarding the twins through wickedly narrowed eyes. He was flushed with drink and inclined, as always at such times, to swagger with a sort of savage playfulness.

"Scalf, you ain't got yo' feller half tied," he broke out, jerking the cord around Jeff. "Why, Lord A'mighty! I could pull myse'f a-loose from that mess o' rope inside o' five minutes," and he set to work to make his cousin secure.

"Do yo' own dirty work," growled Scalf. "Yo' the only one that's a-goin' to profit by it."

It was after midnight. When the two boys had approached Blatch's cabin as agreed, they had been set upon from behind, pinioned, and taken to the cave where the still was. Here they now sat bound and helpless.

"What do you aim to make out of it, Blatch?" asked Jeff, offering the first remark that had come from either of them since their capture.

"Is—uh—" Andy glanced at Scalf, and strove to keep Huldah's name out of it—"is what we come for here yet?"

Blatch burst into a great horse laugh and slapped his thigh.

"What you come after," he repeated enjoyingly. "Lord—Lord! What you come after! You was easy got. I counted on Jude to set you on, and I see I never counted none too much."

"What do you aim to make out of it?" persisted Andy.

The light from the fire built at the back of the cave, whose smoke went up a cleft and entered the chimney of the cabin far above, illuminated the dark interior flickeringly. Blatch went to a jug on a shelf, noisily poured a drink into a tin cup, swallowed it, and then addressed himself to his cousins.

"Yo' pappy ordered me off his land. My lease is up next month. I got to git out of here anyhow, and I aimed to raise a stir befo' I went. This here town podner what I got after you-all quit me," glancing negligently at Scalf, "has many a little frill to his plans, and he knows Dan Haley, the marshal, right well. Sometimes I misdoubt that he come up on Turkey Track to git in with me and git the reward that I'm told Haley has out for the feller that can ketch me stillin'."

He wheeled and looked fully at Scalf with these words, and the town man made haste to turn his back, warming his hands at the blaze. Blatch laughed deep in his throat.

"Scalf's on the make," he asserted with grim humour. "He needed somebody to give up to Dan Haley, and as I hain't got no likin' for learnin' to peg shoes in the penitentiary, I 'lowed mebbe the trade would suit you-all boys, an' I sont over for ye."

The twins writhed in their chairs as much as their tight bandings would permit. How simple they had been to trust the mercy of a desperate man. And they knew Blatch Turrentine. In days past, they had been on the inside, pupils and assistants in such work as this. They stole sheepish looks at each other. But the message he had sent them was yet to be explained. If Huldah was not with him, how had he known she was on the mountain at all?

"What made you send the word you did?" burst out Andy wrathfully.

Blatch had moved over by the fire.

"Oh, I hearn through old Dilsey Rust—that I've had a-listenin' at key-holes and spyin' through chinks—about Bonbright's talk concernin' Huldy, and I thort——"

At these words ancient Gideon Rust, posted as sentinel outside the cave's entrance, keeping himself warily from view of the prisoners, craned forward and stared with fallen jaw, reckless of observation. Humble tenants, pensioners of Judith and the Turrentines, with these words Blatch had wantonly stripped the poor roof from above their grey heads, and turned them out defenceless, to the anger of that strong family. Come what would, he must protest.

"Now Blatch," he whined, "you ort not to go a-namin' names like you do. You said that Dilsey nor me, nary one, needn't be known in this business."

In his excitement he came fully into the light.

"I hope you-all boys understand that I didn't aim to do ye a meanness. Yo' pap—I—I hope he won't hold this agin' us. The Turrentines has been mighty good friends to Dilsey—and here's Blatch lettin' on to 'em like she was a spy."

"Well, what else is she?" asked Blatch with an oath. "What else are any of ye? The last one of ye would sell yo' own fathers and mothers. Don't I know ye? A man's only chance is to get ye scared of him, or give ye somebody else to tell tales on—and that's what I've done."

He turned his attention once more to Andy and Jeff, and left the old man staring aghast, plucking at his beard.

"I've bought me a good team, an' I'm goin' to move my plunder out of here," he told them. "I've done picked me a fine place over yon," jerking his head vaguely in the direction of the Far Cove. "Every stick and ravellin' that belongs to me I'll take, exceptin' the run of whiskey that I'll leave in the still here for to make the marshal shore he's got the right thing. You might expect him any time to-morrow. Old Gid here will lead him in, or Scalf, and the testimony they stand ready to give means penitentiary to you two."

"I reckon you-all won't deny that you have made many a run of blockaded whiskey right here in this cave," put in Scalf, nervously.

"That's so—that's so, boys, I've seed ye many a time," whimpered Gideon Rust, almost beside himself with terror. "I hope ye won't hold it ag'in us that we he'ped to have ye took instead of Blatch here. Blatch is a hard man to deal with—he's been too much fer me—and hit wouldn't do you all no manner of good ef he was took along with ye. I don't see that yo' any worse off ef he goes free."

The twins looked at each other and forebore to reply. Blatch moved over to Scalf, and after some muttered parley with the town partner strode away into the dark. Scalf himself waited only long enough to be sure that Blatch had left, then slipped away, posting the old man down the path as lookout.

Alone in the cave, it was long before either boy spoke. Then came a rush of angry comment and bitter reflection which interrogated the situation from all sides, tending always to the conclusion that it was mighty hard, when a man had given up his evil courses, when he had just joined the church and was about to get married, to have the whole ugly score to pay. They sat cramped and miserable in their splint-bottomed chairs and the hours wore away till dawn in this dismal converse. Pappy was right—he was mighty right. If they ever got out of this—But there, Blatch wasn't apt to make a failure.

It was broad daylight when at last Blatch Turrentine brought his team up and as close to the cave's mouth as he dared. It was loaded already with a considerable amount of furniture and clothing from the cabin, and he climbed down the steep approach to take from the cave the jugged whiskey, and the keg or two which was aging there. His eyes were reddened; but the dark flush which had been on his face had now given place to a curious pallor. There was a new element in his mood, a different note in his bearing, a suggestion of furtive hurry and anxiety.

He was not afraid of the marshal. Haley could not be on the mountain before noon. But he had left that behind in the little log stable from which his team came that cried haste to his going.

Gord Bosang from whom he was to buy the horses was a man somewhat of Blatch's own ilk. Cavalierly called out of bed after midnight and offered only a partial cash payment—all that Blatch had been able to raise—he had angrily refused to let the team be taken off the place. Turrentine's situation was desperate. He must have the horses. In the quarrel that followed, he struck to clear this obstacle from his path; but whether he had left a dead man lying back there on the hay—whether it was a possible charge of murder he was now fleeing from—he had not stopped to find out. He had got back to his cabin with all haste, pitched his ready belongings into the wagon, and now he came down to the still to get the last, and see that all there was working out right.

As his foot reached the opening he uttered a loud exclamation, then leaped into the cave. Both chairs were empty, the ropes lying cut beside them. He sprang back to the rude doorway and gave the usual signal—the screech-owl's cry. It was inappropriate at this time, yet he could not risk less, and he sent it forth again and again.

Getting no answer he ventured cautiously to call Gideon Rust's name, and when this failed he looked about him and came to a decision. The boys were gone. The fat was in the fire. Yet—he returned to it—the marshal could not be there before noon. He had time to remove the whiskey if he worked hard enough. He glanced at the still. The worm and appurtenances were of value. He had saved money for nearly two years to buy the new copper-work. He wondered if he might empty and take it also.

For half an hour he toiled desperately, carrying filled jugs up the steep and hiding them carefully in his loaded wagon. The kegs he could not move alone, and set to work jugging the fluid from them. Sweat poured down his face, to which, though he drank repeatedly from the tin cup, no flush returned. His teeth were set continually on his under lip. His breath came heavily as he lifted and stooped. In the midst of his labours a slight noise at the cave entrance brought him to his feet, staring in terror. The sight of trembling Gideon Rust in the opening reassured him.

"Come in here, you old davil, and help me jug this whiskey," he cried out. "Whar's Scalf? How come you an' him to let them boys git away? What do you reckon I'm a-goin' to do to you for it?"

"Why, is them fellers gone?" quavered the old man, craning his neck to look gingerly in. "I never seen nothin' movin' up here, but—they was a gal or so come norratin' past on the path; I 'lowed when I seed calicker that it mought be Huldy, you named her so free."

"Well, shut yo' fool mouth and get yo'se'f to work," ordered Blatch. "I've got to be out o' this."

He turned his back on old Gid and forgot him.

"Ef I thort I had time I'd take my still with me," he ruminated, going close to it and laying a fond touch upon the copper-work. "I'm a mind to try it."

"Hands up, Turrentine!" came a short sharp order from outside. Blatch whirled like a flash, and looked past Gideon Rust in the doorway. Over the old man's shaking shoulders, he saw the levelled rifles of the marshal and his posse.

"Thar," whispered ancient Gideon fairly weeping, as they closed in on Turrentine and snapped the handcuffs on his wrists, "now mebbe ye won't name a pore old woman's name so free, ef you have bought her to yo' will, and set her to spy on them that's been good friends to her."



Chapter XXVII

Love's Guerdon

When Judith left Andy in charge of her patient and mounted the ladderlike stair to her own small room under the eaves, she felt no disposition to sleep. She did not undress, but sat down by the window and stared out into the black November night. Despite everything, there had come a sort of peace over her tumult, a stilling that was not mere weariness. She was like a woman who has just been saved from a shipwreck, snatched away from the imminent jaws of doom—chastened, and wondering a little. Intensely thankful for what she had escaped, she sat there in the dark, cold little room, Judith Barrier, safe from the sin of a godless union, from the life that would have been hers as Blatchley Turrentine's wife.

In the light of her danger, familiar things took on a new face, strange, yet dear and welcome. She turned and gazed with childish eyes up at the decent beams of her rooftree, glad that they still sheltered her a maid, glad that the arms of her home were about her.

With remorseless honesty she went back over her years. Always in the past months of suffering she had blamed this or that extraneous circumstance with her undoing; now she saw and recognised and acknowledged that nothing and nobody had brought disaster upon her but herself. It was not because Blatchley Turrentine was a bad, lawless man, not because the boys were reckless fellows, led and influenced by him, that all this trouble had come. If she, Judith Barrier, had dealt fairly and humbly by her world, she might have had the lover of her choice in peace as other girls had—even as Cliantha and Pendrilla had. But no, such enterprises as contented these, such stir as they made among their kind, would not do her. She must seek to cast her spells upon every eligible man within her reach. She must try her hand at subjugating those who were difficult, pride herself on the skill with which she retained half a dozen in anxious doubt as to her ultimate intentions concerning them.

Her forehead drooped to the window pane and her cheeks burned as she recollected times and seasons and scenes that belonged to the years when Blatch was building up his firm belief that she loved him, and would sometime marry him. It had been a spirited, dangerous game to her then, nothing more.

Her passionate, possessive nature was winning to higher ground, leaving, with pain and travail of spirit, the plane on which her twenty years had been lived. The past months of thwarting, failure, and heart-hunger had prepared for this movement, to-night it was almost consciously making. She was coming to the place where, if she might not have love, she could at least be worthy of it. The little clock which had measured her vigils that night of the dumb supper slanted toward twelve. She got to her feet with a long sigh. She did not know yet what she meant to do or to forbear doing; but she was aware, with relief, of a radical change within her, a something awakened there which could consider the right of Creed—even of Huldah; which could submit to failure, to rejection—and be kind. Slowly she gathered up her belongings and took her way downstairs.

When the door of the sick-room closed behind the boys, she went and knelt down beside the bed and looked fixedly at the sleeper. With the birth of this new spiritual impulse the things Blatch Turrentine had said of Creed and Creed's intentions dropped away from her as fall the dead leaves from the bough of that most tenacious of oak trees which holds its withered foliage till the swelling buds of a new spring push it off. He was a good man. She felt that to the innnermost core of her heart. She loved him. She believed she would always love him. As for his being married to Huldah, she would not inquire how that came about, how it could have happened while she felt him to be promised to herself. There was—there must be—a right way for even that to befall. She must love him and forgive him, for only so could she face her life, only so could she patch a little peace with herself and still the gnawing agony in her breast. Long she knelt thus.

Who that knows even a little the wonders of the subjective mind, who that has tested the marvellous communication between the mood of nurse and patient, will doubt that the sick man, lying passive, receptive, got now Judith's message of peace and relaxation. The girl herself, powerful, dominating young creature, had been fought to a spiritual standstill. She was at last forced to her knees, and the atmosphere which her passionate struggles had long disturbed grew serene about her. Even a wavering note of something more joyous than mere peace, a courage, a strength that promised happiness must have radiated from her to him. For Creed's eyes opened and looked full into hers with a wholly rational expression which had long been absent from their clear depths.

"Judith—honey," he whispered, and fumbled vaguely for her hand upon the coverlet.

"Yes, Creed—what is it? What do you want?" she asked tremulously, taking the thin fingers in her warm clasp.

"Nothing—so long as I've got you," he returned contentedly. "Can't I sit up—and won't you sit down here by me and talk awhile?"

Gently smiling, Judith helped him to sit up, and piled the pillows back of his head and shoulders, noting almost with surprise how well he looked, how clear and direct was his gaze.

"I've been sick a long time, haven't I?" he asked.

"Yes," the girl replied, drawing up a chair and seating herself. "Hit's more'n six weeks that Uncle Jep an' me has been takin' care of you."

He lifted her hand and stroked it softly.

"A body gets mighty tired of a sick fellow," he said wistfully.

Judith's eyes filled at the pitiful little plea, but she could not offer endearments to Huldah's husband.

"I ain't tired of you," she returned in a low, choked voice. "I most wisht I was. Creed——"

She slipped from her chair dropping on her knees beside him.

"Creed, I want to tell you now while I can do it that the boys is gone to get Huldy. She can take care of you after this—but I'll help. I ain't mad about it. I was aimin' to tell you that the next time she come in you should bid her stay. God knows I want ye to be happy—whether it's me or another."

Bewilderment grew in the blue eyes regarding her so fixedly.

"Huldah?" he repeated. And then again in a lower, musing tone, "Huldah."

"Yes—yo' wife, Huldy Spiller," Judith urged mildly. "Don't you mind namin' it to me the first time she slipped in to visit you?"

An abashed look succeeded the expression of bewilderment. A faint, fine flush crept on the thin, white cheek.

"I—I do," Creed whispered, with a foolish little smile beginning to curve his lips; "but there wasn't a word of truth in it—dear. I've never seen the girl since she left Aunt Nancy's that Saturday morning."

"What made you say it then?" breathed Judith wonderingly.

"I—I don't know," faltered the sick man. "It seemed like you was mad about something; and then it seemed like Huldah was here; and then—I don't know Judith—didn't I say a heap of other foolishness?"

The simple query reproved his nurse more than a set arraignment would have done. He had indeed babbled, in his semi-delirium, plenty of "other foolishness," this was the only point upon which she had been credulous.

"Oh Creed—honey!" she cried, burying her face in the covers of his bed, "I'm so 'shamed. I've got such a mean, bad disposition. Nobody couldn't ever love me if they knew me right well."

She felt a gentle, caressing touch on her bowed head.

"Jude, darling," Creed's voice came to her, and for the first time it sounded really like his voice, "I loved you from the moment I set eyes on you. I didn't sense it for a spell, but I come to see that you were the one woman in the world for me. There never was a man done what went more against the grain than I the night I parted from you down at the railroad station and let you go back when you would have come with me—so generous—so loving—"

He broke off with a choking sigh, and Judith raised her head in a sort of consternation. Were these the exciting topics that her Uncle Jep would have banished from the sick-room? she wondered. But no, Creed had never looked so nearly a well man as now. He raised himself from the pillows.

"Don't!" she called sharply, as she sprang up and slipped a capable arm under his shoulders, laying his head on her breast. "You ort not to do thataway," she reproached him. "When you want anything I'll git it."

"I don't want a thing, but this," whispered Creed, looking up into her eyes. "Nothing, only——"

Judith read the mute prayer aright, and tears of exquisite feeling blinded her. As she looked at him, there was loosed upon her soul the whole tide of passionate tenderness which had gathered there since first she saw him standing, eager, fearless, selfless, on the Court House steps at Hepzibah. The yellow head lay on her arm now; those blue eyes which, in many bitter hours since that time, had seemed as unattainable to her love as the sky itself, were raised to her own, they were pleading for her kiss. She bent her face; the full red lips met Creed's. The weary longing was satisfied; the bitterness was washed away.

They remained quietly thus, Creed drinking in new life from her nearness, from her dearness. When she would have lifted her head, his thin hand went up and was laid over the rounded cheek, bringing the sweet mouth back to his own.

"I'll need a heap of loving, Judith," he whispered,—"a heap. I've been such a lone fellow all my days. You'll have to be everything and everybody to me."



Judith's lavish nature, so long choked back upon itself, trembled to its very core with rapture at the bidding. It seemed to her that all of Heaven she had ever craved was to do and be everything that Creed Bonbright needed. She answered with an inarticulate murmur of tenderness, a sound inexpressibly wooing and moving. All that she had felt, all that she meant for the future, surged strong within her—was fain for utterance. But Judith was not fluent; she must content herself with doing and being—Creed could speak for her now. She cherished the fair hair with loving touch, nestling the thin cheek against her soft, warm one.

The beautiful storm-rocked craft of Judith's passion was safe at last in Love's own harbour; the skies were fair above it, and only Love's tender airs breathed about its weary sails.

"We'll be wedded in the spring," Creed's lips murmured against her own. "I'll carry home a bride to the old place. Oh, we'll be happy, Judith."

All through the latter part of the night, while the two lovers were drawing out of the ways of doubt and pain and misunderstanding, into so full and sweet a communion, the November breeze had been rising; toward dawn it moved quite steadily. And with its impulse moved the cedar tree, a long, smooth swaying, that set free that tender, baritone legato to which Judith's ears had harkened away last March, when she came home from Hepzibah after first seeing Creed Bonbright. It was the voice which had talked to her throughout the spring, the early summer, through autumn's desolate days, when the waiting in ignorance of his whereabouts and of his welfare seemed almost more than she could bear; it was the voice which had called upon her so tragically, so insistently, the night of the raid on Nancy Card's cabin. But Creed himself was here now; Creed's own lips spoke close to her ear. The cedar tree had its song to itself once more; she no longer needed its music. Its sound was unheard by her, as the flame of a candle is unseen in the strong light of the sun.



Chapter XXVIII

A Prophecy

Over the shoulder of Yellow Old Bald up came the sun, bannered and glorious; the distant ranges glowed in his splendours; the sere fields about the place were all gilded. The small-paned eastern window of the sick-room let in a flood of morning light. Gone was the bird choir that used to welcome his earliest rays, swept south by the great tide of migration. Those that remained, snowbird, cardinal, and downy woodpecker—the "checkerbacker" of the mountaineer,—harboured all night and much of the day in the barn loft and in Judith's cedar tree. Their twittering sounded cheerily about the eaves.

Back and forth in the puncheon-floored kitchen trudged old Dilsey Rust's heavy-shod foot, carrying her upon the appointed tasks of the day.

In the quiet sick-room, where the low, alternating voices had subsided into an exchange of murmured words, suddenly Creed dropped his head back to stare at his companion with startled eyes.

"Judith!" he exclaimed. "Where are the boys?"

He glanced at the window, then about the room.

"It's broad day. That word Blatch sent was a decoy; Huldah Spiller isn't on the mountain. Somebody must go over there."

Judith rose swiftly to her feet.

"My Lord, Creed! I forgot all about 'em," she said contritely. "Ye don't reckon Blatch would harm the boys? And yet yo' right—it does look bad. I don't know what to do, honey. They ain't a man on the place till Uncle Jep comes. But maybe he'll be along in about an hour."

She hurried to the window and stared over toward the Gulch; and at the moment a group of people topped the steep, rising into view one after the other out of the ravine, and coming on toward the house.

"Here they are now," she said with relief in her tones. "Thar's Andy—Jeff, Pendrilly—why, whatever—The Lusk girls is with 'em! They's another—Creed, they have got Huldy! And that last feller—no, 'tain't Blatch—of all things—it's Wade! They're comin' straight to this door. Shall I let them in?"

"Yes," said Creed's steady voice. "Let them right in."

She ran swiftly to slip an extra pillow under her patient's shoulders, straighten the covers of the bed, and put all in company trim. Her eye brightened when she saw him sitting so erect and alert almost like his old self. Somebody rattled the latch.

"Come in, folks," Creed called, speaking out with a roundness and decision that it did her heart good to hear.

They all pushed into the room, the men shouldering back a little, glancing anxiously at the sick man, the Lusk girls timid, but Huldah leading the van.

"How's Creed?" cried the irrepressible one, bounding into the room and looking about her. "Wade got yo' letter, Cousin Judy, an' I says to him that right now was the time for us to make a visit home. Wade's got him a good place on the railroad, and I like livin' in the settlement; but bridal towers is all the go down thar, and we 'lowed we'd take one."

Every inch of her raiment bespoke the bride, and it did not take Creed many moments to understand the situation, put out a thin white hand and, smiling, offer his congratulations. Wade received them with some low-toned, hesitating words of apology.

"Law, Cousin Creed's ready to let bygones be bygones, Wade, honey!" his wife admonished him.

"Cousin Creed?" echoed the obtuse Jeff.

Wade's wife whirled to put a ready arm around Judith's waist. "Why, you an' him is a-goin' to be wedded, ain't you Judy? I always knowed, and I always said to everybody that I named it to, that you was cut out and made for each other. We heared tell from everybody in the Turkey Tracks that you an' Creed was goin' to be wedded as soon as he got well—then I reckon he'll be my cousin, won't he?"

Creed looked past the whispering girls to where Andy and Jeff stood. As the boys moved toward the bed.

"Did you find Blatch?" he asked, with a man's directness. "How did you-all make out?"

Andy opened his lips to answer, when there was a clatter of hoofs outside. As they all turned to the window, Jephthah Turrentine's big voice, with a new tone in it, called out to somebody.

"Hold on thar, honey—lemme lift ye down."

"Ain't Uncle Jep goin' to be proud when he sees how well you air?" Judith, stooping, whispered to Creed. "He went off to get somebody to he'p nurse you, because he said I done you more harm than good."

"Your Uncle Jep don't know everything," returned Creed softly.

No mountaineer ever knocks on a door, but Jephthah Turrentine made considerable racket with the latch before he entered the room.

"Oh—you air awake," he said cautiously, then, looking about at the others, "an' got company so airly in the mornin'." He glanced from the newcomers to his patient. "You look fine—fine!" he asserted with high satisfaction; then turning over his shoulder, "Come right along in, honey—Creed'll be proud to see ye."

He paused on the threshold, reaching back a hand and entered, pulling after him Nancy Card—who was Nancy Card no longer. A wild-rose pink was in her withered cheeks under the frank grey eyes. She smiled as Judith had never imagined she could smile. But even then the young people scarcely fathomed the situation.

"Creed," cried the old man, "I've brung ye the best doctor and nurse there is on the mountings. Nancy she run off and left us, and I had to go after her, and I 'lowed I'd make sartain that she'd never run away from me again, so I've jest—we jest——"

"Ye ain't married!" cried Judith, sudden light coming in on her.

"We air that," announced old Jephthah radiantly.

"Well, Jude, I jest had to take him," apologised Nancy. "Here was him with the rheumatics every spring, an' bound and determined that he'd lay out in the bushes deer-huntin' like he done when he was twenty, and me knowin' in reason that a good course of dandelion and boneset, with my liniment well rubbed in, would fix him up—why, I jest had to take him."

She looked about her for support, and she got it from an unexpected quarter.

"Well, I think you done jest right," piped up Huldah, who had been a silent spectator as long as she could endure it, "I'm mighty glad I've got a new mother-in-law, 'caze I know Pap Turrentine's apt to be well taken keer of in his old days."

His old days! Nancy looked indignantly from the red-haired girl to her bridegroom who, in her eyes, was evidently still a sprightly youth.

"Huh!" she remarked enigmatically. Then with a sudden change; "Yit whilst we are a-namin' sech, honey, won't you jest run out to my saddle and bring me the spotted caliker poke off'n hit—hit's got my bundle of yarbs in it. I'll put on a drawin' of boneset for you befo' I set down."

"All right, Nancy—but I reckon I'll have to clear these folks out of this sick-room fust," responded old Jephthah genially. "We're apt to have too much goin' on for Creed."

But as they were marshalled to leave, the noise of a new arrival in the kitchen brought the curious Huldah to the door and she threw it wide to admit Iley, into whose arms she promptly precipitated herself with voluble explanations, which covered her career from the time she left Jim Cal's cabin till that moment.

"You an' Wade are wedded? Why couldn't you let a body know?" inquired Iley wrathfully, grasping her by the shoulder, holding her off for somewhat hostile inspection.

"That's what I say," echoed Jim Cal's voice from the doorway where he harboured, a trifle out of sight. "Ef you-all gals would be a little mo' open an' above-bo'd about yo' courtin' business hit would save lots of folks plenty of trouble. Here's Iley got some sort o' notion that Huldy was over at Blatch's, an' she put out an' run me home so fast that I ain't ketched my breath till yit."

"Over at Blatch's?" old Jephthah looked angrily about him, and Judith made haste to explain the whole matter, detailing everything that had led up to the trouble.

"We-all talked it over, Uncle Jep, and as you wasn't here we made out to do the best we could, and the boys went."

"After me!" crowed Huldah. "An' thar I was on the train 'long o' Wade comin' to Garyville that blessed minute."

"Well, Blatch had us hog-tied an' waitin' for the marshal to come an' cyart us down and send us to the penitentiary," Jeff set forth the case. "But you know how Blatch is, always devilin' folks; he made old Gid Rust mad, an' when Clianthy an' Pendrilly met the old man out on the road soon this mornin', he told 'em to take a knife and come up to the cave an' they could keep what they found."

"I never was so scairt in my life," Cliantha asseverated. Her china-blue eyes had not yet resumed their normal size or contour, and the assertion was easily believed.

"Nor me neither," agreed Pendrilla. "I says to him, says I, 'Now you, Gid Rust, do you 'low we're crazy? We're a-lookin' for old Boss and Spot, an' we ain't a-goin' up yon nary step.' An' he says to us, says he, 'Gals, you never mind about no cows,' he says. 'Hit'll shore be the worse for Andy and Jeff Turrentine ef you don't git yo'selves up thar an' git up thar quick.' An' with that he gives us his knife out of his pocket, 'caze we didn't have none, and we run the whole blessed way, and cut the boys a-loose."

"I was that mad when I seen 'em tied up thataway," chimed in Cliantha, "that I wouldn't a 'cared the rappin' o' my finger ef old Blatch Turrentine hisself had been thar. I'd 'a' stood right up to him an' told him what I thort o' him an' his works." There are conditions, it is said, in which even the timid hare becomes militant, and doves will peck at the intruder.

"Well, I reckon I got to get you folks out of here now for sartain," said Jephthah as she made an end. "Nancy, honey, is the yarbs you wanted for Creed in with them you're a-goin' to use on me?"

The little old woman felt of Creed's fingers, she laid a capable hand upon his brow. Then she flashed one of her quick, youthful smiles at her husband.

"You named it to me about Jude and Creed being at the outs," she said frankly; "but I see they've made up their troubles. The boy don't need no medicine."

Jephthah stared at his transformed patient, and admitted that it was so.

"Well he does need some peace and quiet," the head of the house maintained as he ushered his clan into the adjoining room.

"Uncle Jephthah," called Creed's quiet voice, with the ring of the old enthusiasm in it, as his host was leaving the room. "Do you remember telling me that the trouble with my work on the mountain was, I was one man alone? Do you remember saying that if I was a member of a big family—a great big tribe—that I'd get along all right and accomplish what I set out for?"

"I say sech a lot of foolishness, son, I cain't ricollect it all. Likely I did say that. Hit mought have some truth in it."

"Well," said Creed, carrying the hand he held to his lips, "I reckon I'll be a member of a big tribe now; maybe I can take up the work yet, and do some good."

The old man looked at him. Here was the son of his heart—of his mind and nature—the congenial spirit; the welcome companion, interested like himself in abstractions, willing to stake all on an idea. Days of good comradeship stretched before these two. He reached down a brown right hand, and Creed's thin white one went out to meet it in a quick, nervous clasp.

"Son," spoke out Jephthah in that deep, sonorous voice of his, "Creed, boy, what you set out to do was a work for a man's lifetime; but God made you for jest what you aimed then to do and be. Yo' mighty young yet, but you air formed for a leader of men. To the last day of its life an oak will be an oak and a willer a willer; and yo' head won't be grey when you find yo' work and find yo'self a-doin' it right."

"Pap Turrentine!" called Huldah from the kitchen, "Maw wants ye out here."

The door swung wide; it showed a vision of Nancy Turrentine, flushed, bustling, capable, the crinkled grey hair pushed back above those bright eyes of hers with a prideful hand, entering upon the administration of her new realm. Oh, it had not been easy for one of her spirit to be a poor little widow, living out on the Edge, with nobody but slack Doss Provine to do for her, hardly dishes enough to set the table, often not much to put in them, eking out a scanty living by weaving baskets of white-oak splits. When Judith rode up to the cabin on the Edge that evening of late March, it was the hardest time of the year; now was the mountaineer's season of cheer and abundance—his richest month. Outside, nuts were gathering, hunting was good, and she had for her provider of wild meat the mightiest hunter in the Turkey Tracks. Jephthah Turrentine's home was ample and well plenished. There was good store of root crops laid up for winter. Judith had neglected such matters to tend on Creed, but Nancy was already putting in hand the cutting and drying of pumpkins, the threshing out of beans. Here were milk vessels a-plenty to scald and sun—and filling for them afterward. Oh, enough to do with!—the will to do had always been Nancy's—and for yokefellow in the home, one who would carry his share and pull true—a real man—the only one there had ever been for Nancy.

"Pap," called Huldah's insistent voice again.

"All right—I'm a-comin'," declared Jephthah, then, with the door in his hand, turned back, meaning to finish what had been in his mind to say to Creed.

Jephthah Turrentine was himself that day a bridegroom, wedded to the one love of his life; he appreciated to the full that which had come to Creed. He had thought to say to the boy that now was the opening of great things, to remind him that one must first live man's natural life, must prove himself as son, brother, husband, father, and neighbour, before he will be accepted or efficient in the larger calling. He would have said that life must teach the man before the man could teach his fellows.

But the words of homely wisdom in which he would have clothed this truth remained unspoken. He glanced back and saw the dark head bent close above the yellow one, as Judith performed some little service for Creed. The girl's rich brown beauty glowed and bloomed before the steady, blue fire of her lover's eyes. She set down her tumbler and knelt beside him. Their lips were murmuring, they had forgotten all the world save themselves and their love. Jephthah looked at the rapt young faces; these two were on the mount of transfiguration; the light ineffable was all about them.

"Lord, what's the use of a old fool like me sayin' I, ay, yes or no to sech a pair as that?" he whispered as he went out softly and closed the door.

THE END