"Whar'd you git him? Huh?"

"Oh, I found him along the road between here and the station."

"Did--did he come on the cyars with you? Whar war he at? Hu come he in thar?" David did not reply for an instant, and the awed child drew a step nearer. "Whar war he at?" he insisted. "Hu come he in thar?"

"He was hanging to a bush as I came along, and I put him in my box and brought him home and cut him up and put a little bit of him in here."

Then there was silence, and David forgot the small boy until he heard a deep-drawn sigh behind him. Looking up for the first time, he saw him standing aloof, a look of terror in his wide eyes as if he fain would run away, but could not from sheer fright. Poor little mite! David in his playful speech had not dreamed of being taken in earnest. He drew the child to his side, where he cuddled gladly, nestling his twisted little body close, partly for protection, and partly in love.

"You reckon he's plumb dade?" David could feel the child's heart beating in a heavy labored way against his arm as he held him, and, pushing his papers one side, he lifted him to his knee.

"Do I reckon who's dead?" he asked absently, with his ear pressed to the child's back.

"The devil what you done brought home in yuer box."

"Dead? Oh, yes. He's dead--good and dead. Sit still a moment--so--now take a long breath. A long one--deep--that's right. Now another--so."

"What fer?"

"I want to hear your heart beat."

"Kin you hear hit?"

"Yes--don't talk, a minute,--that'll do."

"What you want to hear my heart beat fer? I kin feel hit. Kin you feel yourn? Be they more'n one devil?"

"Heaps of them."

"When I go back, you reckon I'll find 'em hanging on the bushes? Do they hang by ther tails, like 'possums does?"

Comfortable and happy where he was, the little fellow dreaded the distance he must traverse to reach his home under the peculiar phenomena of devils hanging to the bushes along his route.

"Oh, no, no. Here, I'll show you what I mean." Then he explained carefully to the child what he really meant, showing him some of the strange and beautiful ways of nature, and at last allowing him to look into the microscope to see the little cells and rays. As he patiently and kindly taught, he was pleased with the child's eager, receptive mind and nave admiration. Towards evening Hoyle was sent home, quite at rest concerning devils and all their kin, and radiantly happy with a box of many colored pencils and a blank drawing-book, which David had brought him from Farington.

"I kin larn to make things like you b'en makin' with these, an' Ca.s.s, she'll he'p me," he cried.

"What is Ca.s.s doing to-day?" David ventured.

"She be'n up here most all mornin', an' I he'ped get the light ud fer fire, an' then she sont me home to he'p maw whilst she stayed to fix up."

"But now, I mean, when you came up here?"

"Weavin' in the loom shed. Maw, she has a lot o' little biddies. The ol'

hen hatched 'em, she did."

"What have you done to your thumb?" asked David, seeing it tied about with a rag.

"I plunked hit with the hammer when I war a-makin' houses fer the biddies. I nailed 'em, I did."

"You made the chicken coops? Well, you are a clever little chap. Let me see your hand."

"Yas, maw said I war that, too."

"But you weren't very clever to do this. Whew! What did you hit your thumb like that for?"

"Dunno." He looked ruefully at the crushed member which the doctor laved gently and soothingly.

"Why didn't you come to me with it?"

"Maw 'lowed the' wa'n't no use pesterin' you with eve'ything. She tol'

me eve'y man had to larn to hit a nail on the haid."

David laughed, and the child trotted away happy, his hand in a sling made of one of the doctor's linen handkerchiefs, and his box of pencils and his book hugged to his irregularly beating heart; but it was with a grave face that Thryng saw him disappear among the great ma.s.ses of pink laurel bloom.

That evening, as the glow in the west deepened and died away and the stars came out one by one and sent their slender rays down upon the hills, David sat on his rock with his flute in his hand, waiting for a moment to arrive when he could put it to his lips and send out the message of glad hopes he had sent before. She had asked that one little thing, that his music might still be glad, and so for Ca.s.sandra's sake it must be.

He tried once and again, but he could not play. At last, putting away from him his repentant thoughts, he gave his heart full sway, saying to himself: "For this moment I will imagine harmlessly that my vision is all mine and my dream come true. It is the only way." Then he played as if it were he whom she had kissed so pa.s.sionately, instead of his flute; and thus it was the glad notes were falling on her spirit when Frale found her.

CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH FRALE RETURNS AND LISTENS TO THE COMPLAINTS OF DECATUR IRWIN'S WIFE

All was quiet and lonely around Carew's Crossing when Frale dropped from the train and struck off over the mountain. Soon there would be bustle and stir and life about the place, for the hotel would be open and people would be crowding in, some to escape the heat of the far South and the low countries, some from the cities either North or South to whom the bracing air of the mountains would bring renewed vitality--business men with shattered nerves and women whose high play during the winter at the game of social life had left them nervous wrecks.

But now the beauty of the spring and the sweet silences were undisturbed by alien chatter. As yet were to be heard only the noises of the forest--of wind and stream--of bird calls and the piping of turtles and the shrilling of insects or vibrant croaking of frogs--or mayhap the occasional sound of a gun, discharged by some solitary mountain boy, regardless of game laws, to provide a supper at home,--only these, as Frale climbed rapidly away from the station toward the Fall Place, and Ca.s.sandra. He would stop there first and then strike for his old haunts and hiding-places.

He felt a leaping joy in his veins to be again among his hills. How lonely he had been for them he had not known until now, when, with lifted head and bounding heart, he trod lightly and easily the difficult way. And yet the undercurrent of a tragedy lay quiet beneath his joy and haunted him, keeping him to the trails above,--the secret paths which led circuitously to his home,--even while the thought of Ca.s.sandra made his heart buoyant and eager.

The sight of Doctor Thryng who during these months had been near her--perhaps seeing her daily--aroused all the primitive jealousy of his nature. He would go now and persuade her to marry him and stand by him until he could fight his way through to the unquestioned right to live there as his father had done, defying any who would interfere with his course. Had he not a silver bullet for the heart of the man who would dare contest his rights? It only remained for him to meet Giles Teasley face to face to settle the matter forever.

Since it was purely a mountain affair, and the officers of the law had already searched to their satisfaction, there was little chance that the pursuit would be renewed by the State. It would, however, be impossible for him to go back to the Fall Place and live there openly until the last member of the Teasley family capable of wreaking vengeance on his head had been settled with; but as the father was crippled with rheumatism and could do no more than totter about his mill and talk, only this one brother was left with whom to deal. Now that Frale was back in his own hills again, all terror slipped from him, and the old excitement in the presence of danger to be met, or avoided, stimulated him to a feeling of exuberance and triumph. With childlike facility he tossed aside the thought of his promise to Ca.s.sandra. It all seemed to him as a dream--all the horror and the remorse. Time had quickly dulled this last.

"Ef I hadn't 'a' killed Ferd, he would 'a' shot me. Anyhow, he hadn't ought to 'a' riled me that-a-way."

He thought with shame of how he had sat cowering at the head of the fall, and had hurled his own dog to destruction, in his fear. "I war jes' plumb crazy," he soliloquized.

As to how he could deal with Ca.s.sandra, he did not as yet know, but he would find a way. In his heart, he reached out to her and already possessed her. His blood leaped madly through his veins that he was so soon to see her and touch her. Have her he would, if he must continue to kill his way to her through an army of opponents.

The evening was falling, and, imagining they would all be sleeping, he meant to creep quietly up and spend the night in the loom shed. There was no dog there now to disturb them with joyful bark of recognition. At last he found himself above the home, where, by striking through the undergrowth a short distance, he would come out by the great holly tree near the head of the fall. Already he could hear the welcome sound of rushing water.

He drew nearer through the thick laurel and azalea shrubs now in full bloom; their pollen clung to his clothing as he brushed among them.

Cautiously he approached the spot which recalled to him the emotions he had experienced there--now throbbing through him anew. He peered into the gathering dusk with eager eyes as if he thought to find her still there. Ah, he could crush her in his mad joy!