357

IN HIDING.

IN the skull-shaped pocket—which was the inner chamber of the cave where Lance lay, was neither light nor life. They were the bare ribs of the mountain that arched above him in that place, blackish, misshapen, grisly in an unchanging chill. The continual dripping which would have seemed music if he had come upon it in a summer's noon, vexed him now, and took on tones that he wished to forget. Sylvane had provided him pitch pine to burn, because it would give more light, and there was a crevice which would lead the smoke away; but he fretfully told himself that the resinous sticks made the place smell like a tar kiln, and put out his fire rather than endure it.

Then in the blank darkness his burned arm pained him intolerably, and presently he crept forth into the entrance which held the tiny spring to steep the cloths in water, hoping to assuage the hurt.

Day filled this outer chamber with a blue twilight, while round the turn was always black obscurity. Summer spread upon it each year a carpet of the finest ferns; now the delicate fronds 358 lay shriveled and yellow on the inky mold; only a few tiny bladderworts remained in the shelter of the remote crevices. In spite of the raw cold he lingered by the little basin, his lifted eye encountering the bird's nest he and Callista had found there in July, full then of warmth and young life and faithful love. It was beneath a breadth never penetrated by the drip. He studied the little abandoned home of the phoebe, built there of moss and leaves plastered together against the rock with clay. He noted absently how beside it remained a portion from the building of the previous year; and by looking closer in the half light he made out at least five rims of mud, from which the nests of five preceding spring-times had crumbled away.

Then, a caged, fevered animal, he went back into the cave and lay down. It was not freezing cold there—such a place is much like a cellar, warmer than the outside air in winter, as it is cooler in summer—but the sensation of being buried came to wear upon the spirit of the fugitive, and he was fain to creep nearer to glimpses of the sky, out once more into the vestibule of his prison. There were bits of life here, too, humble, and—as his own had come to be—furtive. Plastered upon the limestone walls were the homes of countless mud wasps, and the bell-shaped tents of the rock spiders. Around the edges the dry sand of its 359 floor was pitted with the insect traps of the ant-lion, that creature at the mouth of whose tiny burrow a prehistoric Lance Cleaverage—a Lance whose tousled head would scarce have reached above this man's knee—used to call long and patiently, "Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, come up and get some bread!" As though recalling the childhood of another, he could see that valiant small man, masterfully at home in his world, arrogantly sure of himself, coming to—this. The rock vole, whitish-gray, rat-like, most distinctive of all the small, subterranean life of the cave, peered out at him and reminded him where he lay, and for what reason.

In suffering, half delirious, those earlier hours went by. He had never contemplated killing Flenton Hands. There was none of the bully in Lance Cleaverage, iron as his nerves were, high as his courage. He had gone purposely unarmed to the quarrel, regarding Flenton contemptuously as a coward; believing that he could make the man publicly eat his words and apologize for them. But this open humiliation was as far as his intentions went. The poet in him, the Lance of the island, recoiled desperately from memory of that dead face, the eyes closed, the mouth crookedly a-gape, the ghastly light from the flaming alcohol wavering upon it.

So greatly was he wrought upon by his situation and his hurts, that by the second night his anguish of mind and body had only 360 sunk from that first fierce clamor to a dull ache, which was almost harder to bear, and which kept sleep from him quite as effectually. He scarcely ate at all of the food Sylvane had left; but drank thirstily at the little spring every hour of the twenty-four. In this sort the time had passed, and now Sunday and Sunday night were gone; the morning of the second day was here.

The thought of Callista haunted him continually. What, at such a juncture, would be her attitude? One of reprehension, certainly; but if he knew that mind of hers at all, there would be no hostility. Her pride would lead her to offer, perhaps, some assistance to the man whose name she bore. And then suddenly he was aware of a figure in the mouth of the cave, and Callista's voice whispering,

"Lance—Lance!"

He stumbled to his feet and went gropingly forward, encountering with his right hand—held out as a sort of shield to the burned arm—the bundle she carried,—the great hunter's quilt, wool-padded and well-nigh waterproof, the pair of homespun blankets, and, riding upon them, a basket of cooked food,—while from the other hand swung a tin pail. She was laden like a strong man.

"Who's with you—who packed all this?"—he made his first inquiry quite as though he had expected her. There was no word 361 of surprise or gratitude.

"Sylvane," she answered in the same hushed tone. "I aimed to come alone, but he wouldn't let me. We made it since midnight. He left me yon side the creek, so as to make haste home. He'll be burning brush in the nigh field on the big road where everybody can see him all day. Come night, he'll be back for me. What you got it all dark here for, Lance? I'll make ye a fire that won't smoke."

She felt the earth, to be sure that it was dry, and then, with brusque kindness, refusing all aid from him, flung down her burden. She carried quilt and blankets in and spread a comfortable pallet of them.

"You go back inside where it's not so cold," she commanded briefly. "I'll bring some chestnut chunks and make you a good fire. Go back. Lance."

He turned obediently. Did memory come to either of the chill, inhospitable hearth she had once refused to tend? She was swift and efficient in her preparations, breaking an armful of dry chestnut limbs and twigs for a clean, smokeless fire; and when that was sending forth its flood of clear, hot radiance, she knelt down and dressed his hurt with the liniment and soft old cloths she had provided.

"Brother Sylvane said he'd be at the creek about nine o'clock 362 to-night for me," she told Lance, as she deftly arranged a sling by means of a bandana. "We got to be right careful about comin' here, now that Caney's goin' down. Wish't it had stayed up, like Sylvane said it was when you-all came."

Lance stared at her with the ghost of a laugh in his eyes.

"You never could have got through it in this world, Callista," he said softly. "It was all Buddy and me could do. We was wet to the skin and nigh drowned."

"Oh, yes I could," Callista assured him with that new, womanly authoritativeness which seemed now to make him her own, rather than set him outside her caring, as it had once done. "I'd 'a' found a way to get through to you. If you have to hide out long, I'm goin' to fix it so that I can be nearer you and do for you. Does that arm feel better now?"

There was a large, maternal tenderness about her which appealed powerfully to Lance, upon whose boyhood fretful, chiding Roxy had tended. She seemed a refuge, a comforter indeed.

His haggard gaze still on her face, he answered in a half-voice that the arm did feel better. The food she warmed for him, the coffee that was heated and served steaming, these gave him courage as nothing yet had. He fairly choked, and a mist swam before his eyes, when she suddenly held the fragrant, inspiring 363 beverage to his lips. Her voice drove away at once the haunting noises of the wind howling up the breaks of the creek, the insistent drip-drip of the water; her presence shut out the vast, oppressive loneliness of the place; her bright warm color shone in that dark against which the mere blaze of the pine knots had been so feeble; sounds of her living presence vanquished the silence that had weighed heavier on his spirit than all the rocks in the bluff. The dome of that stone skull at once became a round, cozy cup of sheltered warmth and kindly human cheer; as much a home, there in the heart of the wilderness, as the phoebe's nest had ever been. For the first time the grim fact that had sent him into hiding, the horrid tragedy, seemed to blur a bit in its outlines. Callista made a trip down the bank to the floor of the valley, and brought up from where she had left them a small kettle and a frying pan.

"I'll cook you a fine dinner," she said in a cheery, practical tone, speaking as though she were in her own kitchen. She maintained an absolutely commonplace note. Neither of them mentioned Flenton Hands nor the reason for Lance's present predicament. "That stuff I brought ready cooked made a pretty good breakfast snack; but when I get me plenty of clean coals here, we'll have some good hot sweet potatoes and bacon. I'm right hungry myself."

Lance sighed. 364

"I reckon I'm as much perished for sleep as for victuals," he told her heavily. "After Buddy left me, I tried to get dry; but we'd missed out most of the things we ought to have got when we come a-past the place, and lost the rest in the creek; I hadn't scarcely anything to change with. Look like I couldn't get to sleep. Then all day yesterday I thought I'd catch a nap; but my arm sort o' bothered me some, and—well, the water drip-drip-drippin' out there pestered me. It seemed I must sleep when night come again; but I don't think I had to exceed two hours of rest."

Callista glanced keenly sidewise at him where he lay inert. The weeks of their separation were now running into months. What these had done to Lance grieved her generosity and flattered her pride. Always lean and bright eyed, there was now a painful appearance about the extreme fleshlessness of jaw and temple, the over-brilliance of the eye in its deeply hollowed orbit. Sight of what he had suffered for her and by her softened Callista's voice to tenderness when she spoke.

"We'll fix it for you to rest after dinner," she told him positively. "I can set out at the mouth of the cave, so you will be easy in your mind; then you'll get some good sleep."

Lance accepted this as indicating that she was very willing to 365 be rid of him and his talk. It was what might be expected. He asked her a question or two and relapsed into silence. Presently, noticing that his eyes were not closed, she gave him some additional news.

"The baby's about to walk," she said. "He's a-pullin' up by the chairs all the time, and he can go from one person to another, if they'll hold out they' hands."

A swift contraction passed over Lance's features at the picture her words called up.

"Haven't got him named yet?" he suggested huskily.

The color flared warm on Callista's face as she bent to the fire.

"I—why—Gran'pappy's an old man, and I'm the onliest grandchild he's got. He always was powerful kind to me; and the baby—why, he just—"

"You've called the boy Ajax," supplied Lance, in that tired voice which now was his. "That's a good name."

While she cooked the "fine dinner" their talk blew idly across the surface of deeps which both dreaded.

"Pore Roxy!" Lance said musingly. "Hit was mighty kind of her to send me her gospel quilt."

From her work at the fire Callista answered him.

"Your sister Roxy thinks a heap o' you, Lance; you needn't never 366 to doubt it. Course she does, or she wouldn't always have been pickin' at you."

Lance lay tensely quiescent a moment, then he questioned softly,

"Is that a sign?"

Callista glanced at him a bit startled; but the long lashes veiled his eyes, and the face was indecipherable.

"Roxy was bound and determined to come here in my place," she observed. "I reckon I'd never 'a' got the word where you was hid out if it hadn't 'a' been for her. Sylvane wouldn't tell her, and she come to me about it. Sis' Roxy has a kind heart under her sharp speech."

From beneath those shadowing lashes Lance looked long and curiously at her, but made no response. After the meal was served and eaten with a sort of subdued enjoyment, they continued silent, glancing furtively at each other, Callista a bit uneasy, and most urgent that he should try to rest.

When she rose and went lightly about little homely tasks, her husband's eyes followed her every movement. Something he wanted to say—the sum of all those days of black loneliness and nights of brooding in the Gap cabin after she left him there—stuck in his throat and held him silent. A tiny creature, probably the 367 rock vole, nosing about in the obscurity which hid the rear of the cave, dislodged something which fell with a sudden pang of musical sound across the aching silence, to be followed by tiny squeakings and scuttlings. Callista turned, her hand raised to her lip, and stared into the darkness whence the airy chord spoke to her. Lance looked up and caught the shine of the firelight on her white cheek, her bright hair, lighting a spark in the eye which was averted from him.

"It's my old banjo," he said nervelessly. "Go get it, Callista, and break it up and put it on the fire."

She seemed to hear only the opening words of his command, and moved quietly into the shadows behind them, groped for the instrument, found and brought it forward in her hand.

"Break it 'crost your knee, and then burn it," Lance prompted her.

She looked at him with a curious round of the eye, a swift surprise that was almost terror. The banjo, lacking a string and with the remaining four sagging woefully, yet spoke its querulous little protest in her fingers. This was the voice that had cried under her window. Here was the singer of "How many miles, how many years?" and she was bidden to break it and cast it to the flames. This had been Lance's joy of life, the expression of moods outside her understanding and sympathy. She 367 caught the shining thing to her as though she defended it from some menace, cherishing it in a kindly grasp.

"Oh, no," she answered softly. "No, Lance. I couldn't burn it up. It's—the banjo is the most harmless thing in the world. Why should I be mad at it?"

"You used to be," said Lance simply. "I—" he hesitated, then finished with a sort of haste—"I always was a fool about it. I think you'd better put it in the fire."

Reverently she touched the strings, struggling with something too big for expression.

"I'll never harm it," she told him. "If I thought you would, I'd take it back with me and keep it till—till you could come and play it again. You just don't feel like yourself now."

His arm dropped to the rock beside him. His face, turned away from her, was laid sidewise upon it. She guessed that he feigned sleep.

She had forgiven the banjo. She spoke of his homecoming. She would accept him. She would hold nothing against him! . . . Yet, somehow, he could not find in his sore heart the joy and gratitude which should have answered to this state of affairs. He ought to be thankful. It was more than he deserved. Yet—to be forgiven, to be accepted—when had Lance Cleaverage ever desired such boons?

When all was cleared away with efficient, skillful swiftness, 369 Callista left her patient lying quiescent, and went to the cave, wrapping herself in one of the homespun blankets and sitting where she could look out and see the valley. After a time inaction became irksome, and she went down to gather more chestnut wood for his fire. This she piled in the vestibule, laying it down lightly for fear of disturbing the sleeper. The afternoon wore on. Once she looked around the turn, but the fire had declined, and she could make out nothing save a bulk of shadow where Lance lay. Stealing in, she laid on more wood. The next time she went out the sun was sunk behind the western ranges, and twilight, coming fast, warned her that she must presently get back to her tryst with Sylvane. Returning with the last load of fuel, she found the inner chamber of the cave full of the broken brightness that came from a branch of pine she had ventured to put in place, seeing that the smoke so completely took care of itself. Her husband still lay with his head on his arm. She would not wake him. Doubtfully she regarded the prostrate figure, then knelt a moment at his side and whispered,

"Lance. Lance, I have obliged to go now. Either Sylvane or me—or both of us—will be here a-Wednesday night about moonrise. If anything happens that we can't come Wednesday, we'll be here the next night."

She waited a moment. Getting no response, she murmured,

"Good-by, Lance." 370

The tone was kind, even tender. Yet the man, whose closed lids covered waking eyes, felt no impulse to let her know that he heard, no desire to respond to her farewell.