Part 19 (1/2)
”Well, take keer o' yourself.”
”I will, dad,” she said, and tenderly she watched his great figure slouch out of sight.
An hour after dark, as old Judd sat on the porch of the cabin in Lonesome Cove, young Dave Tolliver rode up to the gate on a strange horse. He was in a surly mood.
”He lemme go at the head of the valley and give me this hoss to git here,” the boy grudgingly explained. ”I'm goin' over to git mine termorrer.”
”Seems like you'd better keep away from that Gap,” said the old man dryly, and Dave reddened angrily.
”Yes, and fust thing you know he'll be over hyeh atter YOU.” The old man turned on him sternly.
”Jack Hale knows that liquer was mine. He knows I've got a still over hyeh as well as you do--an' he's never axed a question nor peeped an eye. I reckon he would come if he thought he oughter--but I'm on this side of the state-line. If I was on his side, mebbe I'd stop.”
Young Dave stared, for things were surely coming to a pretty pa.s.s in Lonesome Cove.
”An' I reckon,” the old man went on, ”hit 'ud be better grace in you to stop sayin' things agin' him; fer if it hadn't been fer him, you'd be laid out by them Falins by this time.”
It was true, and Dave, silenced, was forced into another channel.
”I wonder,” he said presently, ”how them Falins always know when I go over thar.”
”I've been studyin' about that myself,” said Devil Judd. Inside, the old step-mother had heard Dave's query.
”I seed the Red Fox this afternoon,” she quavered at the door.
”Whut was he doin' over hyeh?” asked Dave.
”Nothin',” she said, ”jus' a-sneakin' aroun' the way he's al'ays a-doin'. Seemed like he was mighty pertickuler to find out when you was comin' back.”
Both men started slightly.
”We're all Tollivers now all right,” said the Hon. Samuel Budd that night while he sat with Hale on the porch overlooking the mill-pond--and then he groaned a little.
”Them Falins have got kinsfolks to burn on the Virginia side and they'd fight me tooth and toenail for this a hundred years hence!”
He puffed his pipe, but Hale said nothing.
”Yes, sir,” he added cheerily, ”we're in for a h.e.l.l of a merry time NOW.
The mountaineer hates as long as he remembers and--he never forgets.”
XV
Hand in hand, Hale and June followed the footsteps of spring from the time June met him at the school-house gate for their first walk into the woods. Hale pointed to some boys playing marbles.
”That's the first sign,” he said, and with quick understanding June smiled.
The birdlike piping of hylas came from a marshy strip of woodland that ran through the centre of the town and a toad was croaking at the foot of Imboden Hill.