Part 60 (1/2)
”Alas! it is too true what Pluto has been telling you. My brother is missing. He has not been seen since the night before last. His horse came home, with spots of blood upon the saddle. O Zeb! it's fearful to think of it!”
”Sure enuf that _air_ ugly news. He rud out somewhar, and the hoss kim back 'ithout him? I don't weesh to gie ye unneedcessary pain, Miss Lewaze; but, as they air still sarchin' I mout be some help at that ere bizness; and maybe ye won't mind tellin' me the particklers?”
These were imparted, as far as known to her. The gardes scene and its antecedents were alone kept back. Oberdoffer was given as authority for the belief, that Henry had gone off after the mustanger.
The narrative was interrupted by bursts of grief, changing to indignation, when she came to tell Zeb of the suspicion entertained by the people--that Maurice was the murderer.
”It air a lie!” cried the hunter, partaking of the same sentiment: ”a false, parjured lie! an he air a stinkin' skunk that invented it. The thing's impossible. The mowstanger ain't the man to a dud sech a deed as that. An' why shed he have dud it? If thur hed been an ill-feelin'
atween them. But thur wa'n't. I kin answer for the mowstanger--for more'n oncest I've heern him talk o' your brother in the tallest kind o'
tarms. In coorse he hated yur cousin Cash--an who doesn't, I shed like to know? Excuse me for sayin' it. As for the other, it air different.
Ef thar hed been a quarrel an hot blood atween them--”
”No--no!” cried the young Creole, forgetting herself in the agony of her grief. ”It was all over. Henry was reconciled. He said so; and Maurice--”
The astounded look of the listener brought a period to her speech.
Covering her face with her hands, she buried her confusion in a flood of tears.
”Hoh--oh!” muttered Zeb; ”thur _hev_ been somethin'? D'ye say, Miss Lewaze, thur war a--a--quarrel atween yur brother--”
”Dear, dear Zeb!” cried she, removing her hands, and confronting the stalwart hunter with an air of earnest entreaty, ”promise me, you will keep my secret? Promise it, as a friend--as a brave true-hearted man!
You will--you will?”
The pledge was given by the hunter raising his broad palm, and extending it with a sonorous slap over the region of his heart.
In five minutes more he was in possession of a secret which woman rarely confides to man--except to him who can profoundly appreciate the confidence.
The hunter showed less surprise than might have been expected; merely muttering to himself:--
”I thort it wild come to somethin' o' the sort--specially arter thet ere chase acrost the purayra.”
”Wal, Miss Lewaze,” he continued, speaking in a tone of kindly approval, ”Zeb Stump don't see anythin' to be ashamed o' in all thet. Weemen will be weemen all the world over--on the purayras or off o' them; an ef ye have lost yur young heart to the mowstanger, it wud be the tallest kind o' a mistake to serpose ye hev displaced yur aff.e.c.kshuns, as they calls it. Though he air Irish, he aint none o' the common sort; thet he aint.
As for the rest ye've been tellin' me, it only sarves to substantify what I've been sayin'--that it air parfickly unpossible for the mowstanger to hev dud the dark deed; that is, ef thur's been one dud at all. Let's hope thur's nothin' o' the kind. What proof hez been found?
Only the hoss comin' home wi' some rid spots on the seddle?”
”Alas! there is more. The people were all out yesterday. They followed a trail, and saw something, they would not tell me what. Father did not appear as if he wished me to know what they had seen; and I--I feared, for reasons, to ask the others. They've gone off again--only a short while--just as you came in sight on the other side.”
”But the mowstanger? What do it say for hisself?”
”Oh, I thought you knew. He has not been found either. _Mon Dieu! mon Dieu_! He, too, may have fallen by the same hand that has struck down my brother!”
”Ye say they war on a trail? His'n I serpose? If he be livin' he oughter be foun' at his shanty on the crik. Why didn't they go thar?
Ah! now I think o't, thur's n.o.body knows the adzack sittavashun o' that ere domycile 'ceptin' myself I reckon: an if it war that greenhorn Spangler as war guidin' o' them he'd niver be able to lift a trail acrost the chalk purayra. Hev they gone that way agin?”
”They have. I heard some of them say so.”
”Wal, if they're gone in sarch o' the mowstanger I reck'n I mout as well go too. I'll gie tall odds I find him afore they do.”
”It is for that I've been so anxious to see you. There am many rough men along with papa. As they went away I heard them use wild words.