"How are you, stranger?" he demanded, in a soft drawl.

"Where am I?" the words were a whisper on Yancy's bearded lips.

"Well, sir, you are in the Tennessee River fo' certain; my wife will make admiration when she hears you speak. Polly! you jest step here."

But Polly had heard Cavendish speak, and the murmur of Yancy's voice in reply. Now her head appeared beside her husband's, and Yancy saw that she was rosy and smiling, and that her claim to good looks was something that could not well be denied.

"La, you are some better, ain't you, sir?" she cried, smiling down on him.

"How did I get here, and where's my nevvy?" questioned Yancy anxiously.

"There now, you ain't in no condition fo' to pester yo'self with worry. You was fished up out of the Elk River by Mr. Cavendish," Polly explained, still smiling and dimpling at him.

"When, ma'am--last night?"

"You got another guess coming to you, stranger!" It was Cavendish who spoke.

"Do you mean, sir, that I been unconscious for a spell?" suggested Yancy rather fearfully, glancing from one to the other.

"It's been right smart of a spell, too; yes, sir, you've laid like you was dead, and not fo' a matter of hours either--but days."

"How long?"

"Well, nigh on to three weeks."

They saw Yancy's eyes widen with a look of dumb horror.

"Three weeks!" he at length repeated, and groaned miserably. He was thinking of Hannibal.

"You was mighty droll to look at when I fished you up out of the river,"

continued Mr. Cavendish. "You'd been cut and beat up scandalous!"

"And you don't know nothing about my nevvy?--you ain't seen or heard of him, ma'am?" faltered Yancy, and glanced up into Polly's comely face.

Polly shook her head regretfully.

"How come you in the river?" asked Cavendish.

"I reckon I was throwed in. It was a man named Murrell and another man named Slosson. They tried fo' to murder me--they wanted to get my nevvy--I 'low they done it!" and Yancy groaned again.

"You'll get him back," said Polly soothingly.

"Could you-all put me asho'?" inquired Yancy, with sudden eagerness.

"We could, but we won't," said Cavendish, in no uncertain tone.

"Why, la!--you'd perish!" exclaimed Polly.

"Are we far from where you-all picked me up?"

Cavendish nodded. He did not like to tell Yancy the distance they had traversed.

"Where are you-all taking me?" asked Yancy.

"Well, stranger, that's a question I can't answer offhand. The Tennessee are a twister; mebby it will be Kentucky; mebby it will be Illinoy, and mebby it will be down yonder on the Mississippi. My tribe like this way of moving about, and it certainly favors a body's legs."

"How old was your nevvy?" inquired Polly, reading the troubled look in Yancy's gray eyes.

"Ten or thereabouts, ma'am. He were a heap of comfort to me," and the whisper on Yancy's lips was wonderfully tender and wistful.

"Just the age of my Richard," said Polly, her glance full of compa.s.sion and pity.

Mr. Cavendish essayed to speak, but was forced to pause and clear his throat. The allusion to Richard in this connection having been almost more than he could endure with equanimity. When he was able to put his thoughts into words, he said:

"I sh.o.r.e am distressed fo' you. I tried to leave you back yonder where I found you, but no one knowed you and you looked so near dead folks wouldn't have it. What parts do you come from?"

"No'th Carolina. Me and my nevvy was a-goin' into west Tennessee to a place called Belle Plain, somewhere near Memphis. We have friends there," explained Yancy.

"That settles it!" cried Cavendish. "It won't be Kentucky, and it won't be Illinoy; I'll put you asho' at Memphis; mebby you'll find yo' nevvy there after all."

"That's the best. You lay still and get yo' strength back as fast as you can, and try not to worry--do now." Polly's voice was soft and wheedling.

"I reckon I been a heap of bother to you-all," said Yancy.

"La, no," Polly a.s.sured him; "you ain't been."

And now the six little Cavendishes appeared on the scene. The pore gentleman had come to--sho! He had got his senses back--sho! he wa'n't goin' to die after all; he could talk. Sho! a body could hear him plain!

Excited beyond measure they scurried about in their fluttering rags of nightgowns for a sight and hearing of the pore gentleman. They struggled madly to climb over their parents, and failing this--under them. But the opening that served as a door to the shanty being small, and being as it was completely stoppered by their father and mother who were in no mood to yield an inch, they distributed themselves in quest of convenient holes in the bark edifice through which to peer at the pore gentleman.

And since the number of youthful Cavendishes exceeded the number of such holes, the sound of lamentation and recrimination presently filled the morning air.

"I kin see the soles of his feet!" shrieked Keppel with pa.s.sionate intensity, his small bleached eye glued to a crack.

He was instantly ravished of the sight by Henry.

"You mean hateful thing!--just because you're bigger than Kep!" and Constance fell on the spoiler. As her mother's right-hand man she had cuffed and slapped her way to a place of power among the little brothers.

Mr. Cavendish appeared to allay hostilities.

"I 'low I'll skin you if you don't keep still! Dress!--the whole kit and b'ilin' of you!" he roared, and his manner was quite as ferocious as his words.

But the six little Cavendishes were impressed by neither. They instantly fastened on him like so many leeches. What was the pore gentleman saying?--why couldn't they hear, too? Then they'd keep still, sure they would! Did he say he knowed who throwed him in the river?

"I wonder, Connie, you ain't able to do more with these here children.

Seems like you ought to--a great big girl like you," said Mr. Cavendish, reduced to despair.

"It was Henry pickin' on Kep," cried Constance.

"I found a crack and he took it away from me! drug me off by the legs, he did, and filled my stomach full of slivers!" wailed Keppel, suddenly remembering he had a grievance. "You had ought to let me see the pore gentleman!" he added ingratiatingly.