Part 15 (1/2)

All these wandering thoughts were put to flight by the sudden wail of a child.

”Hit's Hallie,” said a woman's voice from the corner. ”She hain't dead.

Not near. Betsy Anne, make a light.”

Florence heard a shuffle in that corner, sensed a groping in the dark, then saw a trembling tube of paper thrust against one of the live coals.

At once the coal began to brighten.

”Someone blowing it,” she thought.

Five seconds later the tube burst into bright flame, throwing fantastic shadows over the room. A few seconds more and a candle was found. It illumined the cabin with a faint but steady light.

Scarcely knowing whether to flee or stay, Florence glanced hurriedly around her. The giant, having risen to his knees, was bending over the child who was now silently sobbing. The two women were standing nearby and in the corner was the last person Florence had expected to see.

”Bud Wax!” she exclaimed.

Then catching the look of pain on his face, she said with a look of compa.s.sion.

”You're hurt!”

”I-I guess it's broken,” said the boy, touching the arm that hung limp at his side.

”But why-”

”I-I thought he'd hurt you, and I-I couldn't-”

”You did it for me! You-” Florence was beginning to understand, or at least to wonder. Bud had done this-Bud, of all persons. Kin of her bitterest enemy, the boy whose choicest possession she had destroyed! And how had he come to be here at that moment? Her head was in a whirl.

”There's right smart of a rock right outside the door,” the boy grinned.

”I were a watchin' from up there an' when I seed him grab yore arm I just naturally jumped. I reckon hit were to far.”

”But if your arm is broken, it must be set.”

”Yes'm, I reckon.”

At that moment there was a sound of shuffling feet at the door. Turning about, Florence found herself staring into the face of a man, a face she recognized instantly. The beady eyes, hooked nose, unshaven chin-there could be no mistaking him. It was he who had twice frightened Marion and at one time all but driven little Hallie into hysterics.

”What more could happen in one crowded night?” she asked herself, deep in despair.

Strangely enough, Bud Wax was the one person in the room who brought her comfort. Oddly enough, too, the person she feared most was the one she saw for the first time that very moment, the man at the door.

Even as she stared at this man with a fascination born of fear, the man spoke:

”What you all so shook up about?” he drawled.

”Hit's Hallie,” the grizzled old man said, running his hand across his brow. ”She's come back. They brung her back. Might nigh kilt her, I reckon, then brung her back.”

Florence's lips parted in denial, but no words came out. Her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth. There she sat, staring dumbly, while a cheap nickel plated alarm clock on the mantelpiece rattled loudly away as if running a race with time, and faintly, from far away, there came the notes of some bird calling to his mate in the night.

At this moment, back in the whipsawed cabin, Marion found herself at once highly elated and greatly depressed.