293

DRAWN BLANK.

FOR a region of dwellers so scattered as those of the Turkey Tracks, the word neighborhood is a misnomer. Where the distances are so great from house to house, where there is no telephone, no milkman on regular rounds, no gossiping servants, one would have said that Callista might go home to her grandfather's and live a month without anyone suggesting that there had been a serious rupture between herself and Lance. But news of this sort travels in a mysterious way through the singularly intimate life of these thinly settled, isolated highlands. The first comers who saw Callista and her baby at the Gentry place knew in some curious fashion that she had forsaken Lance. Perhaps it was her air of permanence in the new home which was her old one; perhaps it was the fact that she had established her little household of two in that outside cabin. However it may be, Buck Fuson rode straight from the Gentry place to Derf's with the information—and found it there before him.

"Iley's man seen her jest at the aidge o' the evenin', streakin' through the woods 'crost the holler with the chap on her hip, and a bundle over her shoulder," Garrett Derf explained. "Them 294 Injuns is smart about some things. He said to Iley when he come home that Lance's squaw had done shook him. Well!"

Gossip is generally personified as an old woman, but the men of a region like the Turkey Tracks are much thrown back upon it for an interest.

"Looks like Callisty never had been greatly petted on Lance," Fuson put forward, flinging a leg around the pommel of his saddle and sitting at ease.

Derf shook his head.

"I reckon she's like any other womern," he deprecated, with a sort of passive scorn. "You can spile the best of 'em. When Lance come over here the day after him and Callisty was wed and sot up housekeepin', and he showed hisse'f plumb crazy to spend money on her, I says to myse'f, says I, 'Yes, an' there'll be trouble in that fambly befo' snow flies.'"

He nodded with an air of one who utters the final wisdom, and Fuson could but agree.

"That's a fact," assented Buck, as one who knew something of the matter himself. "Man can pay out all he's worth, and still not satisfy a woman."

"Satisfy her!" echoed Derf. "Don't I tell you that it's the ruination of the best of 'em? They'll ax ye for anything, and then when they git it they'll quit ye, or turn ye out and pop 295 the do' in yo' face. Lance was jest that-a-way. He wouldn't take a dare. Ef Callisty said she wanted the moon, and let on like she thought he was able to git it, he'd say nothin' and try to grab it for her."

"Ain't that Flent Hands's hawse?" asked Fuson suddenly, as Cindy trotted across the small home pasture and came to the fence.

"Uh-huh," agreed Derf, and the two men steadily avoided looking at each other. "Flent, he put the nag here with us so as to be handy. Him and me's got a trade up for openin' a store in the Settlement, him to run that end o' the business and me to run this end. Don't know how it'll turn out. He's been a-comin' and a-goin' considerable, and he left the filly with us. Says he aims to take her away to-morrow."

"Alf Dease 'lowed to me that Lance was sort o' pestered 'count of Flent havin' the filly," Fuson murmured abstractedly. "Said Lance wanted him to see could he buy her back. I reckon he couldn't go to Hands himself—Lance couldn't—way things air; but it seems he axed Dease to do it."

Derf was silent a moment, then,

"Some says that Lance Cleaverage is fixin' to sell and go to Texas," he opened out categorically. "I've always been good friends with the feller, but I tell you right here and now, I'd be glad to see the last of him. He's got his word out agin 296 Flenton Hands, and, whenever them two meets, there's liable to be interruptions. I'm a peaceful man, and I aim to keep a peaceful place, and I ain't got any use for sech. I wish't Lance would see it that-a-way and move out—I do for a fact."

Slowly Fuson straightened his foot down, sought and found his stirrup; meditatively he switched the mule's withers with the twig he carried, and spoke to the animal, digging a negligent heel into its side, to start it.

"Well, I must be movin'," he said.

Derf stood long, leaning on the rail fence, looking absently after the slow pacing mule in the dusty highway. He turned at the sound of Ola's steps behind him. She had a halter in her hand and was making for the horse lot.

"I hearn what you and Buck was talkin' about," she said defiantly. "I'm goin' to ketch me out Cindy and ride over to Lance's."

"Oh, ye air, air ye?" demanded her father. "Well," with free contempt, "much good may it do ye!"

But Ola was impervious to his scorn. A stone wall was the only barrier her direct methods recognized. She caught and saddled the filly, brought out her black calico riding skirt, hooked it on over her workaday frock, clambered to Cindy's back, and turned her into the little frequented woodsroad down which Lance used to come with his banjo to play for the dances. Cindy put 297 forward her ears and nickered softly as they neared her old home, and Satan, running free in a field of stubble from which Lance had gathered the corn, came galloping to the boundary to stretch a friendly nose across to his old companion. Ola looked with relief at the black horse. Here was assurance that Lance was at home. Yet, when she got off, tied the filly, and made her way to the cabin, she found it all closed, silent, apparently deserted.

In the mountains, nobody raps on a door. Ola gave the customary hail, her voice wavering on the "hello!"

There was no answer.

Again she tried, drawing nearer, circling the house, forbearing to touch either of the doors or step on the porch.

"Hello, Lance! Hoo-ee—Lance!" she ventured finally. "It's Ola. I got somethin' to say to you."

She stood long after that effort. A wind went by in the oak leaves, whispering to itself derisively. The shabby, stubbed little figure in the dooryard, halting with rusty calico riding skirt dragged about her, choked and shivered.

"I know he's in thar," she muttered to herself resentfully, and then marched straight up the steps and shook the door. The rattling of the latch gave her to understand that the bar was dropped. People cannot go outside and bar a door.

"Lance," she reiterated, "I got somethin' to tell you about Cindy."

The hound who had accompanied Lance and Ola on many a stolen 298 hunting trip or fishing excursion roused from his slumbers in the barn and came baying down to greet her. She paid no attention to the dog.

"Flent he's had the filly at our house for two weeks," she said, addressing the closed and barred door. "He—he's a-aimin' to take her away to-morrow. Do you want me to buy her back for you? Lance—aw, say, Lance—do you? I could."

Outside were the usual summer sounds, the rattle of the dog's feet on the porch floor as he capered about her. Within, hearken as she might, the silence was unbroken, till suddenly across it cut, with a sharp pang of melody, the twanging of banjo strings.

Ola began to cry. Springing forward, she beat fiercely on the door with her palms, then laid hold of its knob once more to rattle it.

Under her touch it swung wide, revealing an empty room, spotlessly clean, in perfect order, with Lance's banjo, yet humming, lying on the floor where it had fallen from its nail.

"I know you' in thar," she sobbed, speaking now to the four walls that mocked her with a semblance of welcome. "This here is jest like you. Lance Cleaverage. This is the way you always treat a friend. You ain't a-lookin', you ain't a-carin'!"

Her voice broke shrilly on the last words, and, whirling, 299 she sat down on the step, flinging her forehead upon her knees, sobbing, catching her breath, and still accusing.

"I don't know why I come here this-a-way, a-hangin' around after you!" she stormed. "Hit's jest like it's always been—I cain't he'p myself. The good Lord! What's Callisty Gentry thinkin' of?—her that had you, and wouldn't keep you!"

Silence. The hound curled down at her feet. Cindy, pulling loose from her tether, cropped the roadside grass with steady, even bites. Callista's hollyhocks nodded by the doorstone. In the room there Callista's hand showed everywhere. The Derf girl sobbed herself quiet.

"Lance," she said heavily at length, getting to her feet, "I'm a-goin' to leave the Turkey Tracks. You won't see me no more. I"—she stood and listened long—"well, good-bye. Lance."

She halted down the steps, her glance over her shoulder in the vacant room, so like the empty expressionless face Lance used to turn to her and her blandishments. She got to Cindy and prepared to mount. Again she waited, with her hand caught in the filly's mane; but there came no answer from the doorway, no sound nor movement in the house. She climbed droopingly to the saddle, and took the homeward trail.