340

THE FLIGHT.

THE dark hours of that January night saw the two brothers riding hard up into the mountains toward that tiny cleft in the peaks above East Caney where Lance now remembered the cave that he had once said should shelter him in case he ever killed a man. Sylvane had much of Lance's pride and courage, with little of his dash and perversity. Had the peril been his own, one might have guessed that he would meet it with the gentle stoicism old Kimbro showed. But that Buddy should be in peril, fleeing for his life! The boy's universe reeled around him, confusion reigned where he should have been efficient and orderly; and when they stopped at the cabin in the Gap for supplies, what with the agony of Lance's burn and the disarray of his brother's whole mentality, they made sad work of it. Something to eat, something to keep warm with, something to dress the hurt—these were the things the boy tried to remember, and forgot, and could not find, when he fancied the galloping hoofs of pursuers with every gust that shook the big trees in the dooryard.

He got for the dressing of the arm only a roll of new cloth, 341 rough and unsuitable; while a few extra garments, a blanket, meat, meal, salt, a cooking vessel and some white beans made up the rest of his packet. He came out at the last carrying Lance's banjo and put it on top of the supplies.

"'Way up yon they'll be nobody to hear you, and I reckon it might take off the edge of the lonesomeness," he half apologized when Lance looked curiously at it in the light of the lantern his brother held.

The owner of the banjo made no movement to take it and swing it upon his back, neither did he decline it; but indifferently Sylvane was allowed to bring the once cherished possession along.

Through the cold, naked woods, they pushed to East Caney. The creek was up. It was three o'clock, nearly four hours before the wintry dawn might be expected; yet a late moon had risen sufficiently to show them the swollen torrent. These mountain streams, fed by the snows of the higher ranges, clear, cold, boulder checked and fretted, sometimes rise in a night to a fury of destruction, scouring away whole areas from one bank or another. To-night Caney, great with the snows from both of the twin peaks above it which a January thaw had sent down, made traveling in its bed a matter of life and death. Yet the boys must attempt it. Once behind that barrier of roaring water, 342 Lance would be safe. True, mountain streams often subside as abruptly as they rise, so that no one could tell how long this particular safety would last.

"I reckon we can git through better 'n the nags," Sylvane said dubiously, as they divided the pack between them, and started out on the desperate enterprise of leaping from boulder to boulder through the swirling waters. They lost one bundle in the struggle, and they came through fearfully exhausted. Lance with that left arm one surface of exquisite torture, his countenance pinched and his jaw set, his eyes burning in the white face that his brother could dimly discern. But they did get through, and came drenched, dripping, shuddering with cold, into the little valley.

The last time Lance had seen the place it was brimmed with the wine of summer, green, full of elusive forest scents, bird-haunted, drowsing under July sides, and the most beautiful creatures it held in its sweet shelter were Callista and her child. Now his desolate gaze searched its dim obscurity for the black loom of the rock house that had given its roof to their happy gipsying. The blanket and clothing had gone down roaring Caney; but the banjo, carried carefully on Sylvane's shoulders, whined against the bare twigs of the Judas tree he was passing under, whimpered something in its twanging undertone that 343 demanded awfully of Lance, "How many miles—how many years?"

Without waiting for his brother, and the lantern which the boy was relighting, he dashed down the slope, past the stark, empty rock house—swerving a little like a man going wide of an open grave—and gained the steep pathway to the cave, where Sylvane, panting after, overtook him.

"I'm obliged to get a fire for you, and see can I tie up that there arm," the boy declared pitifully. "Lance, I'm that sorry I lost your blanket and clothes that I don't know what to do!" And his voice trembled.

"It don't make any difference about me," Lance said wearily. "I'd like for you to be dry and warm before you start back—but there's no time. You got to get away from here as quick as you can. If we leave the horses tied down there, and anybody sees 'em—you've got to get away quick, Buddy."

"Where'd I better take Sate?" asked Sylvane, as he had asked before.

"I've been studyin' about that," Lance told him. "They're bound to know I'm in the mountains. We can't get rid of the nag, and if he goes to our house it will seem no more than natural. Best just take him home and put him in the stable."

Sylvane had gathered pitch pine for light and heat. He made a 344 roaring fire and then attempted an awkward dressing of the injured arm. The rough cloths hurt. There was no liniment, not even flour to lay on the burn. Lance locked his teeth in agony and bore it till time seemed to press.

"Go on, Buddy," he urged. "When you can get to me with anything, do it. When you can't—I'll make out, somehow."

"The good God knows I hate to leave you like this," the lad repeated, as he made his final preparations for departure. "Pappy or me will be here inside of two days and bring you news, and something to keep warm with, and something to eat. Lance, please lemme leave ye my coat—"

"No, no, Sylvane, you'd nigh about freeze without it a-ridin' home. It's not cold in the cave here. You go on now, Buddy—that's a good boy." And blindly the younger lad turned and crept down the bank.