Part 11 (1/2)

He filled his lungs again and shoved both feet closer to the oven door.

”But that fire feels real nice,” he finished; ”real nice and comfortin', somehow. And maybe I could stop just a minute.” The old hungry light of curiosity was kindling again, brighter than ever before, in the beady little eyes. ”As you was remarkin', back a stretch, you'd been a-waitin' for me to come along. Was they--was they something you wanted to see me about?”

CHAPTER X

The perplexed frown still furrowed Young Denny's forehead. He felt that the fire had wrought a most remarkably swift cure of all that he had feared, but the anxiety faded from his eyes. White head perked forward, balanced a little on one side, birdlike, Old Jerry was waiting for him to pick up the thread which had been broken so long.

And now it was the big-shouldered boy who faltered in his words, uncertain just how to begin.

”I--I don't know just how to ask you,” he started heavily. ”I'm--I am going away. I'm figuring on being gone quite a while, I think. First, just after I had decided to go, some time last night, I made up my mind to ask you to take care of the stock till I came back. I thought maybe it wouldn't be too hard for you--with you coming by at night, anyhow. There's just the one cow and the team, and the hens to feed.

And then I--I got to thinkin' that maybe, too, you'd be able to do something else for me, if I sort of explained how things were.

There--there wasn't anyone else I could think of who'd be likely to want to do me a favor.”

He paused and licked his lips. And Old Jerry, too, furtively touched his with the tip of his tongue. He was waiting breathlessly, but he managed to nod his head a little, encouragingly, as he leaned closer.

”And that was what I was really waiting for,” the slow voice went on ponderously. ”I saw this morning--anybody could have seen--what the Judge meant them all to believe along the street when we drove through. Somehow things have changed in the last twelve hours. I sort of look at some things differently than I did, and so it was funny, just funny to watch him, and I'm not so blind that I don't know what his story will be tonight down at the Tavern. Not that I care what they say, either. But there is some one who couldn't help believin'

it--couldn't believe anything else--after what happened last night.”

He stopped, groping for words to finish. ”And so I--I waited for you to come,” he went on lamely. ”I took you outside and showed you how it really happened, so that--so that you could tell _her_--the truth.”

He nodded over his shoulder--nodded once out across the valley in the direction of John Anderson's small drab cottage huddled in the shadow under the hill. And now, once he had fairly begun, all the diffidence, all the self-consciousness went from his voice. It was only big and low and ponderous, as always, as he went back and told the old man, who sat drinking it in, every detail of that night before, when he had stooped and risen and sent the stone jug cras.h.i.+ng through the window--when he had turned, with blood dripping from his chin, to find Dryad Anderson there in the doorway, eyes wide with horror and loathing. Not until he had reached that point did Old Jerry move or hint at an interruption.

”But why in time didn't you tell her yourself?” he asked then. ”Why didn't you explain that old Tom hit you a clip out there in the dark?”

Young Denny's face burned.

”I--I tried to,” he explained simply. ”I--I started toward her, meaning to explain, but I tripped, there on the threshold, and went down on my knees. I must have been a little sick--a little giddy. And when I got up again she--she was gone.”

Old Jerry nodded his head judicially. He sucked in his lips from sheer delight in the thrill of it all, and nodded his head in profound solemnity.

”Jest like a woman--jest like a woman, a-condemnin' of a man without a bit of mercy! Jest like 'em! I ain't never been enticed yet into givin' up my freedom; but many's the time I've said--says I----”

The boy's set face checked him; made him remember. This was no mimic thing. It was real; too real to need play-acting. And with that thought came recollection. All in a flash it dawned on him that this was no man-created situation; it must have something greater than that behind it.

That morning had seen his pa.s.sing from the circle to which he had belonged as long as the circle had existed. All through that dreary day he had known that he could never go back to it. Just why he could not say, but he felt that that decision was irrevocable. And for that whole day he had been alone--more utterly, absolutely alone than he had ever been in his whole life--yet here was a place awaiting him, needing him. For some reason it was not quite so hard to look straight back into the eyes of that soul which he had discovered that day; it wasn't so hard, even though he knew it now for the pitiful old fraud it really was.

His thin, leathery face was working spasmodically. And it was alight--aglow with a light that came entirely from within.

”Could you maybe explain,” he quavered hungrily; ”could you kinda tell me--just why it is--you're a-askin' me? It--it ain't jest because you hev to, entirely; now, is it? It ain't because there ain't nothin'

else left you to do?”

Denny Bolton sensed immediately more than half of what was behind the question. He shook his head.

”No,” he answered steadily. ”No, because I'm going to try to tell her again, myself, tonight. It's only partly because maybe I--I won't be able to see her before I go--and part because she--she'd believe you, somehow, I think, when she wouldn't believe any of the rest.”

The white-haired old man sighed. His stiffened body slackened as he s.h.i.+fted his feet against the stove.

”Why--why, I kinda hoped it was something like that,” he murmured; and he was talking more to himself than to Denny. ”I kinda hoped it was--but I never had no reason to believe it.”