Part 23 (1/2)

Judith's lavish heart would have hastened to break its alabaster jar of ointment at love's feet with the impetuous avowal that he had been dear to her since first she looked on him. But there was instant need of haste; the situation was full of danger; that confession, with all its sweetness, might well wait a more secure time and place. She got to her horse glowing with hope, feeling herself equal to the dubious enterprise before them.

”Whatever you say honey,” Creed a.s.sured her. ”Do with me as you will. I'm your man now.”

They had wheeled their mounts toward the open.

”Hark! What's that?” whispered Judith.

The quavering cry of a screech-owl came across the gulch to them. The girl crouched in her saddle, s.h.i.+vering slightly, and stroking Selim's nose so that he might make no stir nor sound.

”They use--that--for a signal,” she breathed at last. ”The boys is out guardin' the trails. And 'pears like they're a-movin'. We got to go quick.”

They set forth in silence; Judith riding ahead, skirted at a considerable distance the buildings on the old Turrentine place, then followed down a rocky stream-bed, dry now and leading abruptly into a ravine. Here the girl took her bearings by the summits she could see black against the star-lit sky, and, avoiding the open, made for the old Indian trail which would lead them directly down to Garyville. They could ride abreast sometimes, and they began to talk together in these broken intervals.

”And Little Buck cried when he told you,” Judith said, in that tender, brooding voice of hers. ”That was my fault. I'm mighty sorry. I wouldn't 'a' hurt the child's feelings for anything; but I never thought.”

”I fixed it up with him some,” said her lover, quickly. ”I told him you only said that because I was hurt and you was sorry for me. I thought I was telling the truth.”

”Uncle Jep feels mighty bad about this business,” she began another time, hastening to offer what consolation she could. ”Nothin' would have made him willin' to it, but the fear that when you brought the raiders up he'd get took hisself. He ain't had nothin' to do with stillin' for more'n six year, but of course hit's on his land, and the boys is his sons. He says he's too old to go to the penitentiary.”

Creed reached out in the gloom and got the girl's hand.

”Oh, Judith, darling!” he said eagerly. ”Let me tell you right now, and make you understand--I never had any more notion of bringing raiders into the mountains than you have yourself. I do know that blockaded stills and what they mean are the ruin of this country; but honey, you've got to believe me when I say I never wanted to get any information about them or break them up.”

The girl harkened, with close attention to the man--the lover--but with simple indifference to the gist of what he was saying. It was plain that she would have loved and followed him had he been a revenue officer himself.

”I'll tell Uncle Jep,” she said presently. ”He'll be mighty proud. He does really set a heap of store by you, and they all know it. But I ain't never goin' to let you talk like that to him,” she added, the note of proud possession sounding in her voice. ”Ef you're goin' to live in the mountains you'll have to learn not to have much to say about moons.h.i.+ne whiskey and blockaded stills--you never do know who you might be hittin'.”

”You'll take good care of me, won't you Judith?” he said fondly, pressing the hand he held. ”And I reckon I need it--I surely do manage to get into misunderstandings with people. But that wasn't the trouble with Blatch Turrentine--he never thought any such thing as that I was a spy. He was mad at me about something else--and I don't know yet what it was.”

Judith laughed softly, low in her throat, so far had they come from the uncertainty, strain, and distress of an hour before. When next the trail narrowed and widened again, she came up on his left, the side of the injured arm, but which brought her nearer to him, leaned close and laying her hand on his shoulder, whispered,

”I reckon I know. I reckon you'll have to blame me with Blatch's meanness.”

”Why, of course that was it!” exclaimed Creed. He looped the bridle on his saddle horn, reached up and drew her hand across his shoulders and around his neck. ”That's what comes of getting the girl that everybody else wants,” he said with fond pride. ”But n.o.body else can have her now, can they? Say it Judith--say it to me, dear.”

Judith made sweet and satisfying response, and they rode in silence a moment. Then she halted Selim thoughtfully.

”This path takes off to Double Springs, Creed,” she said, mentioning the name of a little watering place built up about some wells of chalybeate and sulphur water. ”We might--do ye think mebbe we'd better go there?”

Creed, who felt his strength ebbing, calculated the distance. They had seen, as they made the last turn under the bluff, the lights flaring at the Garyville station. Double Springs was more than a mile farther. ”I reckon Garyville will be the best, dear,” he returned gently. Then, ”I wish I had cut a little better figure in this business--on account of you,” he added wistfully. ”You're everything that a man could ask. I don't want you to be ashamed of me.”

”Ashamed of you!” Judith's deep tones carried such love, such scorn of those who might not appreciate the man of her choice, that he was fain to be comforted.

”If we had known each other better from the first I reckon you would have kept me out of these fool mistakes I've made,” the young fellow said humbly.

”You ain't made no mistakes,” Judith declared with reckless loyalty, ”Hit's the other folks--Blatch Turrentine and them that follers him--no good person could git along with them. Are you much tired Creed? Does yo'

shoulder pain you?”