Part 30 (2/2)
”What's become of Bas?” inquired the young wife a few minutes later, and her husband smiled with an artless and infectious good humour. ”He hed ter be farin' on,” came his placid response, ”an' he asked me ter bid ye farewell fer him.”
But to Bas Rowlett came the thought that if his own opportunities of keeping a surveillance over that house were to be circ.u.mscribed, he needed a watchman there in his stead.
In the first place, there was a paper somewhere under that roof bearing his signature which prudence required to be purloined. So long as it existed it hampered every move he made in his favourite game of intrigue. Also he had begun to wonder whether any one save Caleb Harper who was dead knew of that receipt he had given for the old debt. Bas had informed himself that, up to a week ago, it had not been recorded at the court house--and quite possibly the taciturn old man had never spoken of its nature to the girl. Caleb had mentioned to him once that the paper had been put for temporary safekeeping in an old ”chist” in the attic, but had failed to add that it was Dorothy who placed it there.
Then one day Bas met Aaron Capper on the highway.
”Hes Parish Thornton asked ye ter aid him in gittin' some man ter holp him out on his farm this fall?” demanded the elder who, though he religiously disliked Bas Rowlett, was striving in these exacting times to treat every man as a friend. Bas rubbed the stubble on his chin reflectively.
”No, he hain't happened ter name hit ter me yit,” he admitted. ”But men's right hard ter git. They've all got thar own crops ter tend.”
”Yes, I knows thet. I war jest a-ridin' over thar, an' hit come ter me thet ye mout hev somebody in mind.”
”I'd love ter convenience ye both,” declared Bas, heartily, ”but hit's a right bafflin' question.” After a pause, however, he hazarded the suggestion: ”I don't reckon ye've asked Sim Squires, hev ye? Him an' me, we hain't got no manner of use for one another, but he's kinderly kin ter _you_--an' he bears the repute of bein' ther workin'est man in this county.”
”Sim Squires!” exclaimed old Aaron. ”I didn't nuver think of him, but I reckon Sim couldn't handily spare ther time from his own farm. Ef he could, though, hit would be mighty pleasin'.”
”I reckon mebby he couldn't,” agreed Bas. ”But ther thought jest happened ter come ter me, an' he don't dwell but a whoop an' a holler distant from Parish Thornton's house.”
That same day, in pursuance of the thought ”that just happened to come to him,” Bas took occasion to have a private meeting with the man for whom ”he didn't hev no manner of use,” and to enter into an agreement whereby Sim, if he took the place, was to draw double pay: one wage for honest work and another as spy salary.
Three days later found Sim Squires sitting at the table in Parish Thornton's kitchen, an employee in good and regular standing, though at night he went back to his own cabin which was, in the words of his other employer, ”only jest a whoop an' a holler away.”
Household affairs were to him an open book and of the movements of his employer he had an excellent knowledge.
CHAPTER XXII
The earliest frost of late September had brought its tang to the air with a snappy a.s.sertion of the changing season, when Parish Thornton first broached to Dorothy an idea that, of late, had been constantly in his mind. Somehow that morning with its breath of shrewd chill seemed to mark a dividing line. Yesterday had been warm and languorous and the day before had been hot. The ironweed had not long since been topped with the dusty royalty of its vagabond purple, and the thistledown had drifted along air currents that stirred light and warm.
”Honey,” said the man, gravely, as he slipped his arm about Dorothy's waist on that first cold morning, when they were standing together by the grave of her grandfather, ”I hain't talked much erbout hit--but I reckon my sister's baby hes done hed hits bornin' afore now.”
”I wonder,” she mused, as yet without suspicion of the trend of his suggestions, ”how she come through hit--all by herself thetaway?”
The man's face twitched with one of those emotional paroxysms that once in a long while overcame his self-command. Then it became a face of shadowed anxiety and his voice was heavy with feeling.
”I've done been ponderin' thet day an' night hyar of late, honey. I've got ter fare over thar an' find out.”
Dorothy started and caught quickly at his elbow, but at once she removed her hand and looked thoughtfully away.
”Kain't ye write her a letter?” she demanded. ”Hit's walkin' right inter sore peril fer ye ter cross ther state line, Cal.”
”An' yit,” he answered with convincing logic, ”I'd ruther trust ter my own powers of hidin' out in a country whar I knows every trail an' every creek bed, then ter take chances with a letter. Ef I wrote one hit would carry a post-office mark on ther envellop ter tell every man whence hit come.”
She was too wise, too sympathetic, and too understanding of that clan loyalty which would deny him peace until he fulfilled his obligation, to offer arguments in dissuasion, but she stood with trouble riffles in her deep eyes until at last she asked:
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