IT was late in the afternoon when Hoag rode up to his house and delivered his horse to Cato, with instructions to feed and water the animal and rub him down carefully, as he had to “use him again after supper.”

In the hall he met his wife. She had a tired, anxious look on her face, which seemed flushed by the heat of the cooking-stove, over which she had been working.

“Have the cows come up?” he asked her.

“Yes.” She glanced at him timidly. “Mother is down attendin' to the milkin' with Dilly. I'm watchin' the meat in the stove.”

“You'd better take it up as soon as it's good done,” he said. “I don't want supper to be late ag'in—not to-night, anyway. I've got to ride out to see a man that's got a lot o' land to sell.”

“It's about done,” she answered, wearily, “an' I'll take it up an' set the table.”

He passed on to the kitchen, filled a dipper with water from the pail, and drank; then he returned to the front veranda and sat down in a latticed corner, over which honeysuckles climbed. He removed his coat, for the air was close and hot. He opened the bosom of his moist shirt, and fanned his face, big neck, and hairy chest with his hat. He was upset, dissatisfied, angry. So many things had gone contrary to his wishes. Why had he allowed Silas Tye to talk to him in such a vein? Why had he not defended the worthy principle he and his followers stood for? What could an ignorant shoemaker know of such grave and important issues? Then there was the memory of Jeff Warren's grimly determined mouth, set jaws, and flaming eyes, as he stood placidly demanding satisfaction of him—of him. Hoag's rage ran through him like streams of liquid fire, the glow of which hung before his eyes like a mist of flame. Why had he not—he clenched his brawny fist and the muscles of his arm drew taut—why had he not beaten the insolent fellow's face to a pulp for daring to talk of satisfaction to him? The man, even now, was perhaps recounting what had happened in his stoical, inconsequential way, and there were some persons—some, at least—who would think that the apology was the last resort of a coward. Men who didn't really know him might fancy such to be the case. Yes, he must have it out with Warren. Some day—before long, too—he would call him down publicly on some pretext or other in which a woman's fame was not involved, and prove himself to others and, yes—to himself.

There was a soft step in the hallway behind him. It was his wife. He felt rather than saw her presence in the doorway.

“What is it—what is it?” he demanded, impatiently.

He heard her catch her breath, and knew the delay in replying was due to habitual timidity. He repeated his question fiercely, for there was satisfaction in being stern to some one after the humiliating manner in which he had received Warren.

“You say you are goin' out after supper?” she faltered. “I hope you ain't goin' far, because—”

“I'm goin' as far as I want to go,” he hurled at her. “I won't let you nor your mammy dabble in my affairs. I don't have to make excuses neither. My business is my business. I'll have to be late; but that's neither here nor thar, whether I am or not. I see you both with your heads together now and then, and I know what you say—I know what you think—but I'll be my own boss in this establishment, an' you may as well count on it.”

“Don't, don't! Please don't talk so loud!” she implored him, for his voice had risen almost to a shriek. “Didn't Paul Rundel tell you? I sent 'im in town to find you. Surely you know—”

“To find me? What for?”

“Why, the baby's awful sick; he's just dropped to sleep. Paul got Dr. Lynn as quick as he could, an' then went on after you.”

“Sick—sick—is Jack sick?”

Hoag lowered the front part of his chair to the floor and stood up. He stared into the shrinking face for a moment, and then he spoke in a low, startled voice.

“What did the doctor say ailed him?”

“He said he couldn't tell yet. Jack's got a powerful high fever. Dr. Lynn said it might be very serious, and it might not. He left some medicine, an' told me to watch the child close. He said he'd be back as soon as he could possibly get here. He'd have stayed on, but he was obliged to attend to Mrs. Petty, who ain't expected to last through the night.”

Silence fell as the woman ceased speaking. Hoag's breathing through his big, hair-lined nostrils was audible. He put his hand on the door-facing and swayed toward it. Every trace of his anger had vanished.

“I didn't see Paul.” He had lowered his voice to an undertone. “I had no idea Jack was sick. When—when did you first notice it?”

“About four o'clock. He was playin' in the yard, as usual, an' I didn't dream anything was wrong till Aunt Dilly come to me an' said Jack acted odd. She said she'd been watchin' 'im through the window, an' he'd quit playin' an' would lie down on the grass awhile an' then git up an' play a little an' then lie down ag'in. I went out and found him with the hottest skin I ever felt an' a queer, glassy look in his eyes. I toted 'im in an' put 'im on the bed, an' then I saw he was plumb out o' his head, thinkin' he saw ugly things which he said was comin' to git 'im. He was that way, off an' on, till the doctor come.”

One of Hoag's greatest inconsistencies was the tendency to anger whenever anything went contrary to his desires. He was angry now, angry while he was filled with vague fear and while certain self-accusing thoughts flitted about him like winged imps of darkness. He wanted to charge some one with having neglected the child, and he would have done so at any moment less grave. Just then a low moan came from Mrs. Hoag's room on the right of the hall, and she hastened to Jack's bedside. Hoag followed on tiptoe and bent over the child, who lay on his little bed before a window through which the fading light was falling.

The child recognized his father and held up his flushed arms.

“Daddy, Dack's hick. It's hot—hot!”

“I know—I know,” Hoag said, soothingly, his hand on the child's brow; “the medicine will cool you off after a while.”

“Black' things come to catch Dack—oh, Daddy, don't let 'em—don't let 'em!”

“You was out o' your head,” Hoag heard himself saying, almost cooingly. “It was a bad dream—that's all—a mean, bad dream.”

Then a vague stare of coming unconsciousness crept into the child's eyes and the long lashes drooped to the flushed cheeks. Hoag drew himself erect, held his breath lest his exhaling might waken the child, and crept quietly from the room back to the veranda.

The twilight was thickening over the fields and meadows. The mountains loomed up like sinister monsters against the sky. Clouds of blue smoke from forest fires, far and near, hovered over the valley. The sultry air was laden with the odor of burning twigs, leaves, and underbrush. There was a step on the back porch, and, turning, he saw Mrs. Tilton coming in, bowed between two pails of milk. He went to her as she stood at the kitchen-table straining the warm, fragrant fluid into a brown jar. “What do you think ails the baby?” he inquired. “Looks to me like scarlet fever,” she answered, with the stoicism of her age and sex. “I hain't seen many cases in my time, but from the indications—” He swore under his breath, angry at her for even suggesting such a horrible possibility. “I reckon you don't know much about such things. Wait till the doctor says it's as bad as that before you jump at it so quick.”

“I didn't say I knowed for sure,” Mrs. Tilton flared, resentfully. “But thar's one thing certain, the doctor is worried—I saw that plain enough; he is worried, an' I never would 'a' thought o' scarlet fever if he hadn't said a lot of it was goin' round about.”

“Who's got it?” Hoag demanded, as fiercely as a lawyer browbeating a refractory witness.

“Why, the McKinneys' youngest gal. They sent 'er over here to borrow salt t'other day just before she was took down, an' her an' Jack—”

“I reckon you'll say you let Jack play with 'er next,” Hoag blustered, in the tone of a rough man to a rough man.

“How could we tell?” was the admission, calmly enough made. “She hadn't broke out—she did look sort o' red; but it was a hot day, an' I thought she'd been runnin', as children will do. Jack was playin' in the straw that was cut last week, an' she come by an'—”

“Pack of fools—pack of idiots!” Hoag thundered, and he went back to the veranda, where for several minutes he stood staring dejectedly into the night. He was there holding his unlighted pipe in his hand, his ears bent to catch any sound from the sick-room, when Aunt Dilly, the fat cook, came shuffling in her slipshod way up behind him.

“Supper's on de table, Marse Jim,” she announced, in a low tone of concern. “Miss Sarah an' 'er ma say dey don't feel like eatin' a bite—dey is so clean upset an' outdone.”

Hoag was not conscious of any desire for food, but as a matter of form or habit he followed the negress to the dining-room across the hall from where the child lay and took his usual seat at the long table. A lamp with a pink paper shade stood in the center of the board, and threw a rosy glow over the dishes and cold vegetables and meat. Hoag helped himself to the cabbage and beans, and broke the corn pone, and poured out his coffee. He ate slowly and yet without due mastication, for he was constantly listening, with knife and fork poised in the air, for any sound from the sick-room. The sight of the high, empty chair in which the baby usually sat next to him sent a shudder through him and tightened his throat. Hurrying through his supper, he rose and went back to his seat on the veranda. The fear that was on him was like a palpable weight which crushed him physically as well as mentally. Recent disagreeable occurrences flitted before his mind's eye like specters. It seemed to him, all at once, that a malignant destiny might be taking him in hand. An evil sun had risen on him that day, and this was its setting. Jack, the flower of his life—the only creature he had ever really loved—was going to die—to die, actually to die! Hoag stifled an upsurging groan. His head sank till his chin touched his bare breast, and then he drew himself up in resentful surprise over his weakness. The night crept on like a vast thing full of omnipotent and crafty design. It was twelve o'clock, and yet he had not thought of sleep, although he had not closed his eyes the night before. He heard voices in the sick-room, and was about to go thither, when the door opened and Mrs. Tilton came along the hall and stopped at his chair.

“I thought you was in bed,” she said, in a strange, reserved tone. “I'm awfully worried. I'm afraid it's goin' ag'in' Sarah. She ain't strong enough to stand up under it. If Jack goes she'll go too. Mark my prediction.”

“How's the baby?” Hoag impatiently demanded.

“I don't know; he's tossin' awful. Looks like Dr. Lynn would have been here by this time; but he said the only thing to do was to wait an' see how the medicine acted. Are you goin' to stay up?”

Hoag's head rocked. “Yes, I want to hear what he says. I'll be out here if—if you—need me.”

“All right.” And the old woman slipped away in the unlighted hall, and he heard her softly opening the door of the sick-room. The silence of the night grew profound. The moon was rising like a flaming world above the mountain, throwing its mystical veil over the landscape. There was a sound of a closing gate at the foot of the lawn, and some one entered and came up the walk. It was Henry. He had a cane in his hand, and was idly slashing the flowers which bordered the walk. He was whistling in a low, contented way. Down the steps crept his father, and they met a little distance from the house.

“Stop that infernal noise!” Hoag commanded. “Hain't you got an ounce o' sense? The baby's sick an' you'll wake 'im. Whar 've you been?”

“Over at John Wells's house,” the boy replied. “Tobe is going off to Texas, and everybody was saying good-by.”

“I'll believe that when I have to,” Hoag growled. “I can smell liquor on you now. You fairly stink with it.”

“'Twasn't nothing but an eggnog Mrs. Wells made,” the boy said, slowly, studying the face before him.

“Well, you go on to bed,” Hoag ordered. “An' don't you make a bit o' noise goin' in, either. Don't wake that child.”

“I ain't agoin' to wake 'im,” Henry answered, as he turned away. “I'm sorry he's sick. Can I see him?”

“No, you can't! Go to bed an' let 'im alone.”

When his son had disappeared into the house Hoag stood for a moment staring at the light which filtered through the green blinds of his wife's room, and then, hearing the beating of hoofs on the road, he moved on to the gate with an eager, tentative step.

“That's the doctor now,” he thought. “What the hell's he creepin' along like a snail for when we've been waitin'—” But the horse had stopped in the shadow of the barn, and Hoag saw the rider still in the saddle leaning sideways and peering at him.

“What's the matter, Doc?” Hoag called out. “Want me to hitch yo' hoss?”

“It hain't the doctor—it's me, Cap. Anybody in sight—road clear?”

An oath of combined surprise and disappointment escaped Hoag's tense lips. It was Trawley, and for the first time since he had parted with the man that afternoon he recalled his appointment. He said nothing, but opened the gate, passed out, and went along the fence to the horse and rider.

“I come by to report.” Trawley threw a leg over the rump of his steaming horse and stood down on the ground. “Met Paul Rundel in town searchin' high an' low for you, an' heard your baby was purty bad off, so when I met the boys—eighty odd—an' we'd waited as long as we possibly could, I explained to 'em and took command, an' we went on; we just had to—time was powerful short, you know. We rode fast, goin' an' comin'.”

Trawley ceased speaking and looked at his chief in slow astonishment, for Hoag was blankly staring at the ground.

“My God, Cap, the little chap hain't—dead, is he?”

“No, no, not yet—not yet,” Hoag muttered; “but he may be before mornin'.”

“You don't say! That's bad, powerful bad, for I know what a great pet he is, an' a bright, knowin' child, too, if thar ever was one. Well, I reckon you want to know what we done? We got thar in the neighborhood o' nine o'clock, an' rid straight to the jail. The sheriff was thar hisself on guard, an' at first he thought we was a gang bent on lynchin', an' shet all doors an' talked about firin' on us; but I'd appointed Sim Cotes as spokesman, an' we raised a white flag an' called the sheriff out. Then Sim laid down the law in a speech as smooth as goose grease. As fast as the sheriff would raise an objection Sim would knock it into a cocked hat, till finally the feller didn't have a leg to stand on. Sim told 'im that if he didn't act sensible five hundred men would be out in the mornin' workin' for his defeat in the next election. He wiggled, an' argued, an' mighty nigh prayed—they say he's a deacon or some'n or other; but he had his price, an' he finally tumbled. He went in an' talked with the jailer an' his wife. The woman was on our side; said she didn't want to see the tramp strung up nohow. It was funny; we had 'im whar the wool was short, as the sayin' is, an' so—”

Trawley stopped, for Hoag had turned abruptly and was looking past him to the cross-roads at the corner of his property.

“That must be Doc Lynn now,” he said, excitedly.

“No, it ain't,” Trawley answered. “That is a drummer in a rig o' mine. He went over to Tyler Station before daylight, an' was to git back to-night. I know the hoss's trot. Say, Cap, we shore did act in hot blood last night. We kin say what we like to the public, but we certainly sent one innocent coon to judgment. That measly tramp was as guilty as ever a man was.”

“You think so?” Hoag said, listlessly.

“Yes; we led 'im down the road apiece after we left the jail. He hadn't heard our dicker with the sheriff, an' made shore we was in for hangin' 'im. He must o' had a streak o' good old-fashioned religion in 'im, for all the way we heard 'im prayin' like rips. Even when we all got around 'im to explain he drapped on his knees in the road and confessed to the whole dern business. He didn't ax for mercy, either, but just begged for a few minutes to pray. The boys was all feelin' purty good over the way things was goin' an' was in for some fun, so nobody let on for a while, an' Sim Cotes, in as solemn a voice as a judge, called out that we'd 'low 'im three minutes, an' we all set down on the grass like Indians smokin' a pipe o' peace, an' tuck it in like a show. It seemed he didn't really intend to kill old Rose; he just wanted to stun 'im so he could get what he had, but the old man put up a regular wild-cat fight, an' was yellin' so loud for help, that he had to settle 'im to save his own skin.”

“Then you let 'im go,” Hoag prompted. “Hurry up, I don't want to stay here all night.”

“Yes; some o' the boys was in for givin' the poor devil a sound lashin'; but he really looked like he wasn't strong enough to stand up under it, an' we didn't dare disable 'im, so when we explained to 'im that he was free if he'd get clean out o' the country an' hold his tongue, he was the funniest lookin' sight you ever saw. By gum, he actually tried to kiss our hands; he crawled about on his knees in the road, cryin' an' whimperin' an' beggin' the Lord to bless us. It actually unstrung some o' the boys—looked like they hardly knowed what to do or say. The tramp started off, lookin' back over his shoulder like he was afraid somebody would shoot, an' when he got to the top o' the rise he broke into a run an' he hit the grit like a scared rabbit.”

Trawley laughed impulsively; but no sign of amusement escaped Hoag. His eyes were fixed on a horse and buggy down the road.

“That must be the doctor,” he said. “You go on to town.”

“All right, all right, Cap,” was the reply. “I just thought I'd stop by an' let you know how it come out. Good night.”

“Good night,” Hoag gloomily echoed, and he went back to the gate, where he stood waiting for the doctor.

The physician was a man past middle age, full-bearded, iron-gray, and stockily built. He got out of his buggy with the deliberation of his profession.

“How is the child now?” he asked, as he hitched his horse to the fence.

“I don't know, Doc; you'd better hurry in an' look at 'im. You think he is dangerous, don't you?”

“I thought so when I saw 'im; but I can't tell sure yet. Couldn't get here a bit sooner—tried my best, but couldn't.”

Hoag opened the gate, and they both passed through. On the still air the trotting of Trawley's horse fell faintly on their ears. As they neared the house the light in the sick-room was turned up and Mrs. Tilton came to the front door.

“Walk in, Doctor,” Hoag said, and he remained at the foot of the steps, his bare head catching the silvery beams of the moon. Hoag heard his mother-in-law speaking in a low, explanatory tone, as she led the doctor along the dark hall.

What would the verdict be? Hoag asked himself. Other men had lost their children, why should not he—he, of all men, take his turn at that sort of fatality? He paced the grass in front of the house impatiently. He shrank from seeing the child. There was something in the small, suffering face which he felt would unman him. The minutes seemed to drag like hours. There was a constant grinding and rumbling of feet on the floor within, the mumbling of low voices. Hoag strained his ears for the sound of Jack's voice, but it did not come. Perhaps—perhaps the little fellow was sinking; children died that way, often without pain or struggle. Hoag for one instant leaned toward the hereditary instinct of prayer, and then shrugged his shoulders as he remembered that he had long since given all that up. Belief in God and a future life belonged to a period far back in his memory, when, as a smooth-faced youth, he had erroneously thought himself converted at a revival in which the whole countryside had given itself over to tears, rejoicings, and resolutions. No; if Jack was dying, that was the end of the little life—marvelous as it was—it was the end, the very end. Hoag sat down on the lowest step of the veranda, gripped his big hands between his knees, and stared at the pale, pitiless moon.

The sound of a closing door fell on his ears; a heavy step rang in the hall. The doctor was coming out. Hoag stood up and faced him as he crossed the veranda, his medicine-case in hand. How damnably placid seemed the bearded face; how like that of an official executioner or an undertaker bent on mere profit.

“Well, well?” Hoag gulped. “Well, how is it?”

“I had my scare for nothing.” The doctor bent his body to look around a tree to see if his horse was where he had left it. “It isn't scarlet fever. The child has eaten something that went against him. He had a raging fever; but it's down now, and if you will look to his diet for a day or two he'll be all right.”

Hoag said nothing; something like a blur fell before his eyes, and the fence, trees, bam, and stables rose and fell like objects floating on a turbulent cloud. “Good night,” he heard the doctor saying as from a distance. “Goodnight”—it seemed an echo from within him, rather than a product of his lips. The blur lifted; he steadied himself, and stood watching the doctor as he unhitched his horse and got into the buggy.