345

ROXY GRIEVER.

IT was nearly noon when Sylvane, reaching home by an obscure, roundabout trail, half perished from the cold, scouting the place long and fearfully before he dared enter, found that Sheriff Beason with a posse had been at his father's house, searched it, and gone. At the door his sister Roxy met him, clutching his arm, staring over his shoulder with fear-dilated eyes, and whispering huskily,

"Whar is he? Whar's Lance?"

The boy shook his head, pulling the drenched hat from his curls, and moving toward the hearth-stone where his father sat bowed over.

"He's safe," the words came finally in a half-reluctant tone. New lines of resolution and manhood's bitter knowledge had been graving themselves on Sylvane's face the past twenty-four hours. "I helped him to whar they cain't find him nor take him. Let that be enough."

"No—but it ain't enough," his sister rebelled. "Here's Beason has swore him in a posse of six, and he's out a-rakin' the mountings after Lance. Six men." Roxy's face was gray.

"They've started, have they?" said Sylvane in the voice of exhaustion. "Well, what you don't know they cain't find out from 346 you, Sis' Roxy. And I best not tell you whar Lance is hid."

"Sylvane!" The woman's tone was sharp with suffering, rather than anger. "Do you think I'd tell on my own brother? Tham men might cut me into inch pieces and get nothin' from me. You don't know me, boy. I'd think little of puttin' one of 'em out of the way! Thar was women in the Bible done sech—and was praised for hit. I want to know whar Lance is at," she choked, "and whether he's hurt, and what he's got for to comfort him—pore soul!"

"Hush, daughter," counselled Kimbro gently. "Sylvanus is right. People do sometimes betray what they aim to cover up. If I can guess whar my son is—and I reckon I could—that's one thing; but for any of us to be told, ain't safe."

Silently, almost sullenly, Roxy hunted out dry clothes for Sylvane, the boy sitting near his father, telling Kimbro in a few brief sentences Lance's version of the night's happenings, the old man nodding his head without a word of comment. She set food on the table and Sylvane drew up to eat.

"I want to go whar my Unc' Lance is at," whispered Mary Ann Martha, suddenly pushing a tow head up under Sylvane's arm and nearly causing him to overturn his coffee. "I'm a-goin' to he'p him fight."

Sylvane lifted the child into his lap, and began to feed her 347 with bits from his plate.

"Its Unc' Lance is all right, Pretty," he said absently. "Unc' Sylvane and Gran'pappy'll look after him. That's men's work. It help its Mammy to keep the house, and soon Unc' Lance is goin' to be back and play the banjo for it."

All day, that strange, brief, silent Sunday in February, Roxy strove to have the secret of Lance's hiding place from her younger brother. Again and again she turned from what she was doing to demand it of him; more than once she quit abruptly her labors about the house, to go and hunt him up, to ask him sometimes half-angrily, sometimes cajolingly, pleadingly, almost with tears. The boy withstood the fire of her importunities as best he could. He answered her in as few words as might be. Without harshness, but only doggedly, he still responded in the negative, and always with mildness and a sort of regret.

As it drew toward dusk, Roxy's face began to harden into grim lines, and she went about her preparations for supper with a gleaming eye. Her father, who had walked to a far pasture to salt cattle, came in, and sat with Mary Ann Martha on his knee by the fireplace. Roxy looked in at the door. Mutely, with only a backward jerk of the head, she called them to their meal. As 348 the child was following, her mother detained her and, giving no explanation, went with her into the far room. A moment later she came to the men sitting at the table.

"Well, there's yo' supper," she said resentfully to Sylvane, "sence you 'low that's all I'm fitten to do. Ye can put the things away yo'selves, I reckon. I'm a-goin' on a arrant."

And with the chubby Mary Ann Martha bundled heavily in shawls, silent as a small mummy, and plainly under the hypnotism of impressive instructions from her mother, she turned and went from the room, and they heard the front door close softly after her.

The men looked at each other uneasily, but there seemed nothing to be done.

Outside, Roxy stooped and spoke again to the child. She straightened up and peered long about her, listening intently, then moved obliquely among the yard shrubbery down to the gate. Crossing the road in the deep shade of cedar trees, she struck direct for the Gentry place, going by woods-paths that had so often known Lance's feet. When the short, fat little legs that trotted beside her in silence grew weary, she carried Mary Ann Martha pick-a-back, and always she was whispering to her.

"We're Injuns now, Ma'y-Ann-Marth'. Mammy's a squaw, and you' a little papoose, out a-scoutin' to see can we find Unc' Lance; or 349 head off them that's a-aimin' to do him mischief. Don't it make no noise."

When, in turn, Roxy herself was too tired to carry her daughter longer, she broke a thick willow switch beside a spring branch, and encouraged the little girl to ride a stick horse.

"But remember we' Injuns, honey," she whispered. "Injuns don't make no noise nor let they' nags make none."

In this wise they came to the edge of the timber and surveyed the opening where lay the Gentry farm. Here Roxy left the child, motionless as a little image in her swaddling of thick shawls—stationing her in the grove of young chestnuts from which Lance had emerged the night he came singing to Callista's window—while she scouted with infinite pains the entire circuit of the clearing. She encountered nobody, and heard nothing; yet surely the house where Lance Cleaverage's wife and child were would be subject to espionage. The clear stars hung above the bleak treetops, and by their dim light she could just make out the various buildings, trees and bushes. Once more carrying Mary Ann Martha, she moved down to the corner of a small out-building. Here she gave her last instructions to the child.

"Now, Ma'y-Ann-Marth', you go right up that line of bushes, on the shady side, to yo' Aunt Callisty's house; and don't you speak a word to anybody but her. You say to her that they's 350 somebody—mind, honey, somebody, don't you name who—that wants speech with her, a-waitin' out here by the chicken-house. Tell her to slip down here longside o' them same bushes. Can Mammy's gal say all that and say it right?" And she looked anxiously into Mary Ann Martha's solemn little face.

The child nodded her head vigorously, and a moment later the shapeless small figure started worming its way up along the obscuring row of bushes. Finally she stopped on the doorstone of that cabin where she could hear the "thump-a-chug" of Callista's loom. She well remembered that the last time she was over here her Aunt Callie had entertained her in that building, refusing to come out and see her mother. Unacquainted with any such ceremonial as knocking, incapable of achieving the customary "hello," she planted herself on the doorstep and remarked gruffly,

"Huh!"

The sound did not amount to much as a hail or an alarum, yet it reached the ear of the woman who sat at the loom inside working, with what strange thoughts as her companions it were hard to guess. Somehow, it was now known all over both Turkey Track neighborhoods that Lance had killed his man and fled, and that the sheriff and posse were out after him. The face that bent 351 over the web of rag carpet was sharpened and bleached by this knowledge. The blue eyes gleamed bright with it. When that curious, gruff little "huh" came to her ears, Callista stopped her work like a shot and stood long hearkening.

"Hit was nothing," she told herself, half-scornfully. "I'm just scared, and listenin' for something."

She started the treadle again, and the noise of the batten once more checked the silence into a rhythmic measure. But the dogs had become aware of an intruder. Rousing from their snug quarters under the porch of the big log house, they came baying across the frozen ground. At their outburst of clamor, almost with one motion, Callista stopped the loom a second time, turned out her lamp, and was at the door, drawing it open with a swift, yet cautious movement. There in the vague starlight was Mary Ann Martha backed up against it, shaking a small and inadequate stick at the approaching pack. Swiftly Callista caught the little thing and pulled her inside, closed the door and dropped the bar across. She stooped to the child in the uncertain shine of the fire, questioning in amazement,

"Why, Mary Ann Martha! How on earth did you get here—all alone—at night this-a-way?"

"Thest walked," returned the ambassador briefly. "Aunt Callie," 352 she embarked promptly and sturdily upon her narrative, "they's somebody down at the corner of the chicken-house that wants to have speech with you. Don't you tell nobody, and you thest come along o' me and be Injuns, and don't make no noise, an' slip down thar in the shadder o' the bubby bushes, like I done, so nobody cain't see."

Faithful to her trust, Mary Ann Martha the outrageous, the terror of Little Turkey Track, had delivered the entire message without an error. Callista's mind was a turmoil of wild surmise. Who could the "somebody" waiting for her out there be—somebody who arranged all these precautions with such care and exactness? She gave but one glance at the sleeping baby on her bed, caught a heavy shawl from its peg, and, winding it about her head and shoulders, slipped soundlessly from the door, holding Mary Ann Martha's hand. Not a word was spoken between them. When they finally entered the area darkened by the chicken-house, Callista started and her eyes widened mutely at the touch of a hand on her arm.

"H-ssh—Callisty!" came Roxy Griever's thin, scared tones, just above a whisper. "God knows who might be a-watchin' and a-listenin'."

Callista faced about on the older woman staring with sharp inquiry at her in the gloom. Lance's wife found it hard to guess what attitude would be her sister-in-law's now.

"Callisty, honey," began the Griever woman with a sort of 353 wheedling, "I ain't a-goin' to ax one thing of you. Hit's but natural that you don't want to hear mention of my brother's name at this time; but, honey. Pappy and Sylvane has got him hid out somewhars, and they won't tell me whar. I know in reason it's the place you and him camped last summer. Couldn't you lead to it?"

It seemed for a moment as though Callista would spring at her sister-in-law; then she said in a low, distinct voice,

"Well, Roxy Griever, what sort of woman are you, anyhow?"

Roxy studied the horrified countenance turned toward her as well as she could in the half light. She was thick-witted, but eventually she understood.

"You Callisty Gentry!" she ejaculated with a note of passive savagery. "Do you think I'd lead the law to Buddy? What I want to know is whar he's at and how bad hurt is he? Tham men won't trust me, but I 'lowed you'd think enough of the father of yo' child to give me the directions so I could git to him. He's got to have good vittles, and someone to—he's got to have care. L—L"—her mouth quivered so that she could scarce go on—"Lance ain't like some folks—he could jest die for want of somebody to 354 tend on him. Don't I know?" A tremor shook her. "I mind after Ma was gone, and Sylvane was a baby, an' Lance he cried bekaze I—oh, my God, Callisty! tell me whar he's at. I got to git to him. Don't be so hard-hearted, honey. I know hit seemed like Lance was a sinner—oftentimes; but the good God Hisself did love sinners when He was here on earth. Hit says so in the Book. He used to git out an' hunt 'em up. Oh! oh! oh!"

Flinging an arm against the trunk of a sapling, Roxy Griever hid her face upon it and began to weep. Mary Ann Martha stood the sight and sound as long as she could, and then added her shrill pipe of woe.

"Sssh! Hush; both of you, for mercy's sake!" besought Callista. "Stay here just a minute, Roxy. I'm going back to the house to get—well, I know about what he'll need. Then I have to tell Mother to look after the baby."

"Air you goin' with me? Oh, Callisty, air you goin' with me now?" the widow quavered.

"No," answered Callista. "I'm going alone. Grandfather can let me have a horse, or not, as he's a mind. If I can't get it from him, I'll slip back with you and see what Sylvane and Father Cleaverage can do for me. I'm the one to go and look after Lance."

Roxy and the child waited in stoic silence while Callista returned cautiously to the main house. There was some quiet moving about from one building to another, a stir over at the 355 log stable, and in an incredibly brief time Callista came to them riding on her grandfather's horse and leading the mule, saddled, for the other two.

"We'll go a-past yo' house—hit's as near as any way," was all she said.

Once at the Cleaverage place, Lance's wife was persuaded to accept Sylvane's company for the night journey, though she peremptorily—almost impatiently—refused any addition to her ample provision for Lance's comfort. But when the two, all ready to leave, stood reconnoitering in the dark outside the house to see that the coast was clear before starting, Roxy came trembling out with a package which she thrust into her brother's hand.

"Thar," she whispered, "take it to him. I only wish't I'd 'a' got it in the frames and quilted it, so that it might have been some use keepin' him warm."

"It—it ain't yo' gospel quilt, Sis' Roxy, is it?" Sylvane inquired, fumbling with doubtful inquiry at the roll in his hands.

"Hit air," returned his sister, the dignity of a high resolve in her brief response.

"Why, daughter, I think I wouldn't send that," Kimbro deprecated, drawing close in the obscurity. "Of course it's a mighty improvin' thing, but I doubt if Lance has the opportunities to take care of 356 it that a body ought to have to handle such. Don't send it, Roxana. Without doubt it would do him good, if he was whar he could make use of it."

Roxy did not move to receive the bundle which her brother hesitatingly offered back to her.

"I know hit ain't much account," she said disconsolately. "But I 'lowed hit might make him—maybe he'd laugh at it, and hit would cheer him up a leetle. He used to laugh powerful at some of 'em. I've put in my good shears and that Turkey-red calicker, and you tell him, Sylvane, that I want him to cut me out them little davils he was a-talkin' about, as many of 'em as hit'll make."

She looked pathetically from one to the other.

"There ain't nothin' like gittin' a man person that's in trouble intrusted in something. You git him intrusted in cuttin' out davils for my gospel quilt, won't you, Sylvane, honey?—or you do it, Sis' Callie. Maybe hit might make him laugh—po' Buddy, away off to hisself in some old hideout, an' nary soul to—to—an' the sheriff chasin' him like he's a wolf!"

And Callista, wiser than the men, knowing that the gospel quilt would take its own message to Lance, stretched out a hand for the package.